Incorporation & politics

[Kylie Davies <beckster@warehouse.net>]

Sorry folks,

I was incorrect (i think ) - Apparently it only cost's
$60- to register a non profit incorporation. Each state
would be required to lodge a separate application. ( I
spoke to someone from the Office of fair Trading in Vic)
If anybody knows any different please comment.

Incorporation would involve plenty of documentation &
committment though -

Model Rules etc...we can adopt those for the time being or
come up with our own.

Purpose Statement _ what we aim to do etc.

Public Officer appointments 

Constitution, committees & politics.

Accounting.

It might be a good thing to also start working on some
kind of business/operation type plan.

We should also be looking at the current government policy
in this area (eg: IT and disadvantage, networking the
nation, school IT policy, access and equity issues).
Framing our documents in this context is the best way.
We need to be seen as being able to provide gnu/linux 
solutions to some of the problems the government believes
it wants rectified. (possibly rhetoric??)

For further info I suggest people take a look at (for
starters)

 http://www.noie.gov.au/ - this is a Federal gov site

There are also several other programs (including state
based and through corporate based funding / donations). I
will see what else i can find out.

At this point I am sure that everybody knows we will be
able to provide the "technical". We really should be
aiming our energies at the "doing."

The training issue - whilst very important - is something
that we will sort of discover as we go along. (people will
have different needs! we can not assume that we know what
they need)

For eg: I have a pc recipient in mind, probably will be
content with just knowing he can read & write email and
browse around to find info. In this case teaching him
about how to use vim or vi or whatever editor would be
useless. 
If he wants to know how to use an editor - then he can ask
i am sure. (maybe we could have some sort of guide that
will allow a pc recipient to assess what they want to
learn to begin with?.) He would, of course, recieve a
guide book/documentation for all components of his
gnu/linux setup...so he surely might know what an editor
is. He just needs the basics. 

Another point to note: It is not just the lack of IT for
disadvantaged people but the lack of opportunity to get
easy access to a wealth of resourceful information.
Empowering information. 

Not all pc recipients will want or need to know that much
about gnu/linux. Some will. Those that do will ask and
will do the seeking. They will be motivated. On the other
hand if we give computers to people and force them (or
place criteria for training) to learn things that they
really dont need to know...they will end up disillusioned
by the whole thing...and perhaps (as they might now
already b/c of the inequalities inherent) think this whole
computer deal  stinks.

Anyway - So perhaps we need to do these things - 

Formalise in writing what it is that we are going to do?
(either start to tackle incorporation or figure out what
our other options are) Either way we do need some sort of
philosophical underpinning. Thoughts please? 

Start to semi-operate - eg: do whatever you can when you
can - (eg: ken and his friend)

Get some legal advice? (I am working on this one - but if
anybody else can find out anything please do so) It might
be worthwhile for us to consider getting the pc recipient
to sign some kind of legal disclaimer. It will be highly
unlikely that any pc's will catch on fire...but just in
case. Safety techniques will need to be explained to pc
recipients and mechanisms will need to be in place that
assure equip (when it leaves cb) is in good condition.

We know we need to - get documentation - much of it exists
and some of it will need to be adapted. (course notes or
whatever)

We need to read and assess this documentation.

We need to assess some basic apps 

There are probably heaps of other things - eg: see Dave's
Task list(and I may be duplicating here a bit) so feel
free to comment and add to this.

Anyway i am having a go at this training (learning) thing
on Wed - I have an 11 and 12 year old eager to learn the
command line environment. They now have a gnu/linux
partition on their hdd. If anybody is interested I can let
you know how it went.

Kylie