Request for collaboration for Alaveteli tech development

[Mattias Axell]

Hi Alaveteli Dev group!

Building upon my previous email on LogRotate I have an intention to continue building upon the interest for community collaboration among Alaveteli platforms since AlaveteliCon in Oslo 2019. This intention has gotten a bit derailed by the pandemic but then again, what hasn't?! :)

I recently discussed the possibility of sharing resources for Ansible setups to run Alaveteli servers with Laurent from MaDada. I think it would be an initiative that would make it easier for quite a lot of community members. These are some things that I'm seeking interest from more stakeholders to build upon and develop together. And I believe that we can apply for quite some funding together with these kind of things. Anyone interested in helping out and sharing stuff about this? I'm currently looking for collaboration, resources and help on the following topics below. Feel free to fork any of these into a separate mailing thread if you want to share:

• Best practices to maintain an Alaveteli server
  
• Potential collaboration for adapting to running Alaveteli with an Ansible setup
• Securing and Hardening a server with Alaveteli setup - and connected to this:
  
• Minimizing data collection (especially de-Googling) to increase user trust and GDPR compatibility.

Bonus: What about partnering MySociety + Alaveteli partners + Froide platforms + MuckRock + PlainSite to fund and build an API-first FOI platform with optional WebUI such as Alaveteli/Froide WebUI? One question on my mind is "How might we build in FOI transparency from start to offer to authorities and making FOI requests easier for them in their work tools? Starting from the end of helping authorities with FOSS for FOI in this field will help FOI usage from citizen and user end as well. I have seen the projects FOI register and so on GitHub but not in action and I think we as a FOSS community can make more impact by offering the core systems for document and issue management for authorities. Keen on discussing this in separate thread.

Best,

Mattias