It may be a good time for some clarification. HOSEF is the Hawaii Open Source Education Foundation. It is the charitable, non-profit backend for MPLUG and LUAU, and it is a supporter of any other Open Source movements in Hawaii.
First, though, just a reminder that we will meet tomorrow, Saturday, from 10-1 at the Stadium Marketplace Pricebusters. We do this every Saturday, and we also meet on Tuesday evenings from 6-9. You can find information about this and directions at www.hosef.org/when.html I am clearly not the best webmaster, but Enrico, the elected webmaster for HOSEF, is making changes. By the end of the month we are aiming to give Michael at McKinley Community School 25 fat clients (donated machines with hard drives in them) We have the machines and about 10 of the hard drives. There is reason to believe that more hard drives are coming. You can help. So, a few members have told me that they think more people do not come to these bi-weekly meetings because it is perceived as just work. I may have not made the agenda clear enough. It is true that most of what we do is get machines ready for testing the memory/power/mobo/processor. When we have hard drives, we install linux on the faster donated PC's. It is also true that we continue to offer the lab space and our training room for all things Linux/Open Source. A review of my excessive posts will reveal a standing invitation to anyone to: Help install Linux on your own computer Help install Linux on one of our computers Play with Linux on our computers Break Linux (if you can) on our computers Talk about anything Open Source Teach a class about Open Source Ask for a class to be taught about Open Source. I really, really want to build on Hawaii's Open Source community by offering these 6 hours a week, Sat and Tues, for us to get together. So far we have not gotten a lot of takers. It may be the location. Hopefully in time there will be offerings to host meetings and events at other places. The more the merrier. Perhaps someone could host events at UH or other local schools. Perhaps Dan could help offer something at CompUSA. The point is to build the community with charitable and social events. I have said before and will say again that HOSEF was created for YOU. It is a charitable, non-profit corporation incorporated in the State of Hawaii and certified tax-free under the 501(c)(3) exemption. It is driven solely by volunteer labor and resources. No individual is in charge, and all activity is, like the software we promote, Openly Sourced. While I incorporated it and am the Treasurer, I gave away all "power" through the formation of our Steering Committee. Certain list members have Open Source projects. It is our mission to help them in any way possible. If Gary thought he could use something with his project (which is great for schools), then we exist to help him. If there was ever ANYTHING that Linuxdan or other members needed to enable them to promote and advocate Open Source software, especially in our schools, then we exist to help them. Period. There is no competition in our objectives. Period. Our mission states that we are here to help schools and other non-profits, and to promote OSS to businesses and government. Period. HOSEF exists to promote the adoption of Open Source software and nothing else, regardless of individuals. I assure all of you that this Foundation will withstand and outlast ALL of our personalities. That is why it is here. Example: part of the charter is to support LUAU. You all know that it is this group, born of the Mid-Pacif Linux Users Group, that provides the mailing list that is our community. Soon we will need two 4U cases to consolidate our servers at the home of the generous folks at UH. We also need to replace our mirror so graciously hosted by the generous folks at Oceanic. The equipment and cash needed for this can now take a legal and publicy disclosable route. Once given, it is gone, but you have the ability to affect its outcome through your involvement in the group. We elect a steering committee annually, and we have regularly scheduled meetings for you to affect our agenda. While people will come and go, this steering committee and those servers will stay. In the past, it was not possible to make a donation to the needs of this list in a tax-deductible manner. More importantly, it was not possible to make this donation to a democratically elected governing body over which you had control. Most importantly, there was no way to be certain that if the group failed your donations would go to the public. By law we are obligated to give ALL of our assets to the local, state, or federal government should we dissolve. Period. So, that is what HOSEF is, what HOSEF is doing, and what HOSEF is trying to do. In the future it can be anything that you want to help make it become. You can affect its agenda and its assets. It is yours. Thanks for reading all of this and please join us when you can. aloha scott
