Anivar Aravind wrote:
FOSSCOMM is an informal and unregistered collective. How will we
administrate the project, what will be the management structure, will we
charge the Edu Dept, if so how much?
We need not discuss it on the list, and could hold it till the meeting on
the 11th, but I request you to think about it and come with suggestions for
a model to adopt. We have committed for a four-year run, and we should have
a system in our minds which we can always modify as the negotiations go on.
In Karnataka Model, we formed a consortium (another unregistered
body, but with a strong structure with 7 Groups ( FSUG, FSMK, ITfc,
Deeproot , Moving Republic and Sampada) as core members ) to make an
MoU with Government and selected Guru as signatory from our side. In
the Mou We clearly mentioned as all these 7 Groups are Members of
FOSSCOMM network . Core Group is meeting regularly and planning/
analysing developments & work
Anivar Aravind
Moving Republic
The first project of our Karnataka consortium has been quite successful
- We trained High School teachers (one from each of the schools which is
part of the i...@schools Phase I project of Karnataka education
department) and the feedback from many of the teachers has been very
positive. As a next step, we are currently training teacher trainers
from DIETs (District Institute of Education and Training) which are
nodal teacher education institutions at the district level. We plan to
make a formal proposal to the Education department to train their
teacher trainers and provide the software distributions/applications and
curriculum as well and this will require formal commitments from each of
the consortium partners. At the same time, in our last discussion, we
wanted this consortium to also be seen as a "FOSSCOMM node working with
Karnataka Education", to enhance our consortium credibility as
belonging to a national setup and enhance the FOSSCOMM brand as well.
However, the dilemma mentioned in some related mails - how can FOSSCOMM
be both a group of voluntary entities and take up 'contracts' with
others which will require to deliver as per the terms is a real one,
which we need to address and resolve. While large part of our work will
be purely voluntary, FOSSCOMM structures must also allow for certain
'nodes' or 'working groups', comprising of registered entities, to take
up formal commitments and deliver on them, without which FOSSCOMM may
not be taken very seriously. These 'nodes' however need to have full
clarity amongst themselves (and also communicate this clearly with
FOSSCOMM) about how they plan to honor their commitments. Of course any
'liability' due to default should be that of the node, and not extend to
FOSSCOMM. At the same time, the rules for these issues need to be clear
to all (which is another task for the 'FOSSCOMM Working Group I proposed
in another mail today)
A second more practical dilemma I can see is how do we establish
appropriate communication processes and channels. Frankly, I find that
'free speech' is a feature of many of our conversations, to the extent
that these can be considered uncivil or rude by others not used to such
exchanges. Particularly, while communicating with 'mainstream folks'
including government officials, we will need to be able to speak in
'more civil and polite' ways, and we need to strengthen these processes
by also practicing the same amongst ourselves. We should accept that
antagonising others because we want to speak what we consider the truth
(which they may not agree) will not usually help the FOSS cause.
To address/resolve these kinds of dilemmas, we need well defined
processes so that while getting the advantages of these flexibilities,
we do not suffer any limitations or drawbacks. This is therefore
something for us to deliberate and decide and if the FOSSCOMM Working
Group is setup, we need to request them to circulate initial
proposals/thoughts for these.
regards,
Guru
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