Hello Ben, Yes, you nailed it on the head. The majority of our staff time is spent working with our volunteers, because that is what we are dedicated to do. We have some volunteers who we call ³volunteer staff². They dedicate 10 - 50 hours a week to help us run our programs. We also have about 14 Master Recyclers who support what we do in or community. Then we have a group of 200 folks who come through our doors looking for job and social skills training.
We won¹t move to LINUX because we have no desire to set people up to get a LINUX box, fail to master it, and then try to put a pirated Windows operating system on the machine. These are folks who are trying to go to school for the first time-Windows is the OS used in the LCC labs and at the U of O labs. Not LINUX. That said, we keep putting machines in our store with LINUX installs. We try to do 1/3 LINUX, 1/3 Mac, and 1/3 windows installs. Respectfully, lorraine From: Ben Barrett <[email protected]> Reply-To: Eugene Unix and Gnu/Linux User Group <[email protected]> Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 16:33:31 -0800 To: Eugene Unix and Gnu/Linux User Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Eug-lug] inside NextStep Having a customized linux may seem like a good idea to you, but if they have to hire you to support it, and you're the only one there who can support it, then it is a horrible idea for the business. They have to juggle a lot of resources, and people are the hardest part. I'm sure they'd appreciate seeing your work if you really wanted to volunteer it, but since you're more interested in the free-PC payoff, I doubt there's a trust-building relationship there for you. Why do we volunteer? If as you suggest there is so much energy in refurbishing old PC's with linux, then why isn't it happening? Is it bad management? Is it a lack of understanding of linux? Is it an inkling of just how much time we've seen get sunk in compatibility and driver issues? I don't think NextStep is necessarily going to be the #1 stop on a EUGLUG'ers list, but I'm sure many of us will continue to appreciate and support their presence in our community, whether we're busy trying to refurb curbed equipment or shopping at walmart :) One major difficulty I've seen with organizations that accept volunteer efforts, is the management of volunteers overall -- this is a very difficult task: streamlining for the average volunteer & deciding how much specialization to allow for, and ensuring a safe/proper amount of oversight. Making these decisions, as well as implementing them, cost an organization a lot of resources! Well I hope at least some of this perspective is useful. In short, I say, it's a free country so by all means, go ahead and [try to] do it better yourself, and/or just keep exercising free speech in the meantime!! Ben On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 3:23 PM, JS Kaplan <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> > Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:40:08 -0800 >> > From: [email protected] >> > To: [email protected] >> > Subject: Re: [Eug-lug] inside NextStep > >> > >> > >> > As Lorraine has said just about every time this subject has come up: >> > They would like to offer more Linux options, but don't presently have >> > the in-house knowledge and expertise to setup and coordinate a >> > Linux-based build system. >> > Perhaps your 40 hours of volunteer time could have been better spent if >> > you are so passionate about the subject. > > Actually, I offered to streamline the puppy use for first cut in refurb. I > offered to do a bunch of stuff. > The person who would forward those offers up the food chain is more interested > in, well let's just > say he's not interested in someone (eg ME) who requires little to no training > in certain areas. > It's politics man plain and simple. I offered myself part-time at minimum wage > and was waved off > with no reason. So, the no in-house excuse doesn't hold water. > > ...it was 30 hours until a week or so ago. > > >> > >> > FYI: The Bottle Bill covers water and flavored water as of January 1. > > So, where do I get the stickers for the 857 plastics shipped after Jan 1 I > have? As far as I know, you can only get them if your name is Coca-cola or > Pepsi. You are working under the assumption that our bottle bill works. > >> > >> > -ajb >> > _______________________________________________ >> > EUGLUG mailing list >> > [email protected] >> > http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug > > > Windows Live: Keep your life in sync. Check it out. > <http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t1_allup_explore_022009> > > _______________________________________________ > EUGLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug > _______________________________________________ EUGLUG mailing list [email protected] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
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