Short Project Update

[C. Cossé]

Apologies for my seeming absence ... I moved to California and now I think I'm going back to New Mexico.  Sigh. 

While in California I have made a few phone calls to PIQE (Parental Institute for Quality Education -- http://www.piqe.org).  I learned about PIQE because in Las Cruces, New Mexico they tried their own version of such a program, modeled after PIQE.  Something seems to have gone wrong with the New Mexico instance, but the California instance is thriving.  I am in an ongoing conversation with the California PIQE program, which can be translated as "I'm expecting to connect with the right person early next week".  That's alright, though, that person's assistant is funneling my info in the meantime and I'm grateful for her assistance so far.

Another development: the other day I received an email from Linux Foundation (LF) regarding to NetDispenser.  I was cautiously thrilled for any acknowledgement, but not sure how they came to contact me.  Was it FSF/E, PyCon, PIQE, or who?  Turns out I had sent them an email in March and they were responding to that.  So we swapped a few emails and here's what Linux Foundation has offered us:

We can add your organization as a partner of the LF diversity program: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/diversity-inclusiveness/programs/

We can offer: 

• Logo on the website
  
• The Linux Foundation could offer complimentary training courses to their members. We will be working with PIQE as a Diversity / Inclusion partnership. 
  
• Complimentary passes to LF events (Open Source Summit NA (you already provided) & Open Source Summit Europe/ELC EU)
  

I sent the light blue ND logo and hopefully it will appear on the above link soon.

The last update is that my ongoing conversation with Richard Stallman (RMS) and FSF regarding a campaign is progressing.  Dr. Stallman is willing to support the project, and the form of that support is now the current focus of the conversation.  One issue is that FSF doesn't want ND to promote use of the Raspberry-Pi as first choice of device.  They can still get behind the ND project if we continue to offer an SD image for the R-Pi, but they'd like us to offer a more FSF-copacetic device.  Not only that, FSF doesn't like Debian, either!  However, their reasons for not liking Debian are that the package manager isn't abundantly clear about proprietary offerings.  I countered that it's somewhat of a non-issue in the case of our ND project, as parents would be using the pre-configured SD image in a dedicated fashion, and not as a desktop for installing other stuff.  Thus we'd ensure that only FSF approved software would be on the credit-meter device and users wouldn't be installing their own stuff.  I also explained that FSF support was important as the project is promoting FS4E (Free Software For Education) and it seems strange, at best, if FSF isn't even onboard with it.  I hope that point can be some sort of catalyst in our conversation as we've both invested a lot of time discussing FSF support for the NetDispenser.

I beieve that brings things up-to-date now.  Support begets more support, so my fingers are crossed for more positive developments in the very near future. 

PS: The Linux Foundation invited NetDispenser to Open Source Summit North America in Vancouver, CA August 29 - 31, 2018.  They offered to help us with a booth and staff of some sort.  More on this after further investigation of details.  Anyone want to go? 

-Charlie

[C. Cossé]

Buggy google deleted this message.  Thanks for posting Jonathan!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jonathan Barratt <jonathan...@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, May 12, 2018 at 8:49 PM
Subject: [netdispenser] Re: Short Project Update
To: NetDispenser <netdis...@googlegroups.com>

Hello Charlie, and thank you for inventing and sharing ND! 

I think it is exactly what many parents have been looking for as a third-party solution to what's become one of the top sources of contention in their family these days.

I'm a Canadiian but unfortunately I'm not visiting home until after OSSNA this year, but I'll still keep my eye out for any random opportunities I can send your way from over here...

It looks like great work so far to me, I hope it gets thte audience it deserves! :)

Yours sincerely,

Jonathan

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