Following up discussions at the Virtual meeting on Thursday Aug 3 and telephone conversation I had with Shelley Robinson (Exec. Director of NCF), here are some points for consideration of how Linux-Ottawa may move forward.
Background: With declining participation and willingness to serve on the Board, Ottawa Canada Linux Users Group, an Ontario not-for-profit corporation was dissolved on April 14, 2023 upon a vote of just 16 members (1 more than our quorum). Our monies ($4247.90) were donated to National Capital Freenet, which was deemed an organization that had similar goals and interests. The abbreviation OCLUG will be used for the corporation. The domain name for OCLUG was oclug.on.ca is owned, however, by Andre Gosselin of storm.ca, though he does not appear in their Leadership Team. He donated the cost of the domain to OCLUG, but when asked was unwilling to transfer it to the club. For that reason, we registered Linux-Ottawa.org as a more obvious name. This expires in October. There remains the possibility of what activities the members of the (now informal) group wish to share with NCF. Possibilities: Ms. Robinson has indicated that NCF has some interest in the following: - expanding web and help pages about Linux for NCF - hosting a mailing list - having a discussion group. There is already a "Free Software" DG, and Adam Hunt, its most prolific contributor, has indicated a willingness to have it renamed e.g., Free and Open-Source Software / Linux - engaging with Linux-Ottawa participants in discussions to help NCF select email software as Zimbra is going to become proprietary. NCF would prefer open source, but needs a solution well-suited to very non-tech users. - If nobody else is interested, NCF would be willing to take over the domain Linux-Ottawa.org Caveats: It could be that the mailing list and discussion groups would only be available to registered NCF "members". However, NCF will give an email (which likely constitutes being a member) at a suggested donation of $1 / month. NCF does, of course, also act as an ISP and offers various network option. Several of us are already members/subscribers. If the NCF involvement with Linux flourishes, I suspect the $1 / month level of contribution is not an obstacle. Next steps: Comments and suggestions are welcome. Please recognize that with only about a dozen active members, you will be speaking largel for yourself in offering any services. Also requesting anything more than quite simple steps from NCF will put strain on their resources, especially if the measure must be maintained. Two issues that I believe should be investigated are: - Can a mailing list on NCF have non-NCF emails as list members? - Can Discussion Groups and help pages, either all or selected, be made world-visible? NCF can, and I believe should, restrict posting on the DGs to at least verified participants, likely NCF members, but it would be useful to have resources more openly usable. For the few Linux-Ottawa people, we can arrange a mechanism where one of us who is a member can post queries. Suggested method of responding: Please copy the sentence or two on which you are commenting rather than the whole of the above. I will try to collate any responses and follow-up with NCF. To unsubscribe send a blank message to linux+unsubscr...@linux-ottawa.org To get help send a blank message to linux+h...@linux-ottawa.org To visit the archives: https://lists.linux-ottawa.org
