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<BluePanther> last call, anyone else lurking?
<BluePanther> So has everyone read the document?
<evanl> it's not that long a document :-)
<BluePanther> any comments or concerns/
<milan__> There are a few things.
<evanl> I have a couple of questions too. milan, you go first
<milan__> The Terms say that pretty much anyone can be on the Executive, which is OK when there is no formal body to speak of.
<milan__> But now we are supposed to report changes in the Executive to CLUE.
<milan__> I don't know that we even have anything resembling an official list to speak of right now.
<evanl> I think the point (from the CLUE POV) is that, even without a formal local body, it's important to know who is providing the local coordination.
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<evanl> Ho Don
<don> I have made it??
<BluePanther> welcone to irc Don
<milan__> Yes, Evan. I agree, from your standpoint.
<evanl> That all depends on what "it" you tried to make.
<evanl> Back to my point. There are budgets and money to be spent. And that means responsibility.
<milan__> I'm just saying that it's an issue that we're going to have to work out from our end.
<BluePanther> Myt concern is that the money is released to a legitimate committee
<evanl> Right. "Legitimate" does not require "incorporated", but it does mean well-defined and reasonably open access
<BluePanther> The reason for the agreement is to avoid each comittee having to incorporate
<milan__> It's just that traditionally people have come and gone as they pleased.
<milan__> I mean, just look at this meeting. There's only 4 people as far as I can tell, and it's only IRC.
<BluePanther> We've always had a core that was there from the initial meetings to the end
<evanl> Mike, how big is this core?
<BluePanther> 5-6 in past years, with lots of extras for game day
<BluePanther> I hink there were 7 at the first meeting this year
<evanl> how many of those are here now?
<BluePanther> 2
<milan__> QED
<evanl> Now, it's my understanding that there is no link right now between OSW, OLS and OCLUG. Would it help if someone put out a region-wide call for interest?
<milan__> OLS is run privately by Andrew Hutton AFAIK
<evanl> Sure, but he doesn't do it alone -- or does he?
<BluePanther> He has a few staff
<milan__> There is overlap between OCLUG and OSW but no one on the OCLUG Board is actively participating in OSW at present.
<evanl> Well, it hasn't been made public yet, but NOSW (nation open source week) is going to be a coast to coast affair, backed by  a professional ad campaign and about $300K in paid advertising. Maybe the scale and national scope will attract some more folks
<BluePanther> OSW decided to part ways a few years ago
<BluePanther> from OCLUG
<evanl> is there a reason for the parting that's still valid today?
<milan__> It was never really an OCLUG thing.
<milan__> It sprung from a concurrence of events a few years ago I think.
<milan__> We had a "Business of Open Source" conference and installfest all at once, and it grew from there.
<BluePanther> OCLUG hosted the first event, the next year we partnered with the universites, and other LUGS
<evanl> other LUGs?
<milan__> There's a Gatineau LUG.
<BluePanther> unix group
<milan__> There's some FreeBSD people here too.
<evanl> OK. How many of them we told about 2night?
<milan__> One, I think. Dan Langille is on the Mailing List.
<BluePanther> I posted to the OSW list, and #Clue 
<BluePanther> I was hoping for a few more CLUE people to finalize the terms doc
<evanl> From my POV it doesn't matter who or how, just that there are enough local people to have it happen without burnout. I can help with publicity (or being a mediator if necessary) but it's necessary to have some steering committee to work with
<evanl> As for "Clue people", I can probably help with that. I have a few minor points about the terms doc but nothing dealbreaking.
<BluePanther> Matt has already OK'd it
<milan__> You should have not have too much trouble getting volunteers here.
<evanl> Does "you" imply that it's CLUE's task to get the volunteers? There's no way we could do that by remote control as well as a local steering group
<milan__> No, no.   :)
<BluePanther> the next meeting is set for the 23rd, I've added Nosw to the agenda
<milan__> What I mean is that there's people here to do all the work and to organize the whole thing.
<evanl> Good. As for the terms doc, I just think there needs to be some clarity on budget issues. We're going to be going after nearly a half-mil budget in sponsorship, and there *is* going to be a good amount of central control there.
<BluePanther> The loal budget is the concern of the Doc I don't want the local groups running a defict 
<evanl> Rather than a few thou from companies like IBM, I'm going after them for $30-50K
<BluePanther> any wording suggestions?
<evanl> For the financial control section:
<milan__> Didn't the last OSW make money?
<BluePanther> Yup and it went to OCLUG
<milan__> That's what I thought.
<evanl> I take it that you would rather have excess revenue help in trust by CLUE for the OSW org's next activities?
<BluePanther> yes
<milan__> That hasn't been decided, I don't think.
<milan__> Unless I missed something.
<BluePanther> the meeting in july 2004 decided that
<milan__> Oh. I wasn't involved then.
<evanl> The terms doc says that "CLUE will maintain separate accounting for each local committee" (with which I totally agree). It's no big deal to expand that into something along the lines of what your're suggesting.
<BluePanther> That's the way I'm keeping the book at the moment
<evanl> It's going to be a little interesting if we get all 26 cities with a LUG involved in NOSW :-)
<BluePanther> it's just 26 leger entries, and a record of who is responsible for it
<evanl> It also means that we need to make a distinction between local fundraising (the revenue of which goes into the local accounting) and national fundraising.
<evanl> National fundraising would be paying for things such as professional PR and an ad campaign (which would include paid ads in the Citizen). If an Ottawa company wants to contribute but wants their logo in the Citizen ad, is that a national or a local sponsor?
<BluePanther> How will National funding be spent loaclly - want to avoid duplication
<BluePanther> I was adding to the doc to specify some of the division of activiy
<BluePanther> *CLUE Support*
<BluePanther> 1 Clue shall provide infrastructure such as homepage, email, mailing lists, wiki, archives
<BluePanther> 2 Clue shall maintain a list of national sponsors
<BluePanther> 3 Clue shall provide national advertising
<evanl> yeah, that's along the lines of what I'm thinking. I don't really think there will be any overlap in terms of spending money.
<BluePanther> lcoal would handle event planning, scheduale, venue
<evanl> My concern has to do with sponsors -- whose money goes into the national kitty and which stays in the local ledger?
<BluePanther> That was also one of our concerns, 
<evanl> I think it should boil down to function rather then location.
<BluePanther> I'd be OK with laving sponsor and ad to National
<BluePanther> perhaps asking a sponsor if they want to contribute to the national or local event
<evanl> CLUE will set national sponsorship levels based on what the sponsor gets. If they just want to be associated with a single local event, then the money is budgeted there -- no problem. If the sponsor wants involvement in multiple cities and/or mention in the national ad or PR campiagns, it doesn't go into any specific local ledger. OK?
<BluePanther> Would any of the money then come to the local comittees?    ie to pay for venue
<evanl> The intent is that there would be an allocation from the national budget that would go to local committees based on need.
<BluePanther> That would work, in the past our BIG sponsor determined our choice of venue
<evanl> I hope that the venue is determined by "who provides the cheapest venue that provides the necessary space on the required dates" :-)
<BluePanther> What abut contacting local sponsors, would there be a local POC
<evanl> Well, of course the local POC is the local NOSW committee (or its designate)
<BluePanther> there are offices for several of sponsors here and in other major cites,
<BluePanther> 2. Clue shall coordinate sponsorships
<evanl> You mean like IBM? If the company operates cross-country, they likely have a head office that has a higher budget for community events than regional offices do
<BluePanther> IBM, HP, Novell
<evanl> Lots more than that. We intend to hit companies like Oracle and CA -- they don't make FOSS product but do support them.
<evanl> We will have people specifically designated in charge of fundraising. One of them is an extremely high profile person, possibly Canada's best-known Linux celebrity, who will be joining us in January once his ties with his previous employer are all severed.
<BluePanther> OK so CLUE takes on the advertising and sponsorship, and infrastructure if needed 
<evanl> Not "if needed", rather "as needed". Local groups are in charge of events but it's our role to make suggestions, offer shared resources, and to ensure that all groups can learn from others. Since Ottawa has already hosted an event you have more to teach than to learn, but that kind of exchange still needs to happen
<BluePanther> goog point
<BluePanther> The biggest problem selecting a venue is knowing how much money there is available
<evanl> anyway, i don't think there are many differences between what we're saying. What I would like to set in place is some kind of "finder's fee" if a local group helps produce a good lead that turns into a national sponsor.
<evanl> should that finders fee go to the individual or into the committee's ledger?
<BluePanther> How soon would the locals know what the budget would be?
<BluePanther> I would favour the committee
<evanl> Are there any ballpark ideas? We're hoping that most of the groups can find free/cheap venues thanks to local academic orgs or sponsor offices.
<evanl> Maybe if we can get a good national sponsor, they can help us our with their resources... 
<BluePanther> Our inital goal was to get away from the educational venue -to show linux was not just an academic project
<BluePanther> This the library and RA center, we didn't get a big sponsor the last year and went with Carleton
<BluePanther> What's your feeling on getting business people/goverment workers onto campus?
<evanl> Let's see what we can do. Maybe some is @Carleton, some at IBM's Ottawa office. Or something like that. This is part of the reason that I think that March is too soon for the date.
<evanl> If it's in April or May we have more room to play with (pun intended)
<BluePanther> Given that hte local group seems stalled  at the moment
<BluePanther> it might be possible, one concern with april/May is exam time
<BluePanther> So then for the  local committee
<BluePanther> select venue
<BluePanther> recruit speakers
<BluePanther> provide an accounting of expenses and income
<evanl> I thought you said you were trying to get away from emphasis on academia :-)
<BluePanther> We are but most of the volunters are students, and we've partners with the student groups
<evanl> I'm hoping you're also going to get some business-minded help, once we're into the sponsorship stuff. It will be in the interest of companies like Novell and Red Hat to get their local partners involved in local activities. So even if, say
<evanl> Novell is a national sponsor, a Novell VAR might be a local sponsor or at least provide local volunteer help.
<BluePanther> I think the National angle might get more people out
<evanl> I'm hoping that the national and local efforts will feed on each other.
<evanl> having a good grassroots helps attract nationals
<evanl> having some big nationals helps attract attention at the local level
<evanl> all we need to do is break into that chicken-and-egg cycle :-)
<BluePanther> The only other addition the the documet was something to keep OSW open
<BluePanther> 1 Only Open Source software will be used for OSW.
<BluePanther> 2 OSW materials shall be licneds under an open licence.
<evanl> I personally have no problem with that. When you say "open", does that include Creative Commons licenses that
<BluePanther> That's what I had originally
<evanl> may not be as completely open as the GPL or BSD provisions
<don> Re 1, I think we should have _on display_ system(s) running proprietary software so people can compare and see that OSS stuff is good. But, agreed, no prop. S/W for sale.
<BluePanther> I waws thinking more about our production, ie not using photoshop
<BluePanther> I've been thining about haveing a install demo with SuSE vs XP, the XP install will stop after a few demos then they try and authenticate
<evanl> I can't speak completely for the PR or ad firms' choice of tools, and I don't want to inflict limits on them so long as the result of their work is available in unencombered file formats
<evanl> the install comparison sounds interesting
<BluePanther> especially after the last 'get ehe facts' study
<BluePanther> OK so how should it be reworded
<BluePanther> Only Open Source software will be by the local committee.
<BluePanther> which would free the outside firms
<evanl> I don't think there's much to be worded at all. I think that most local groups will only be showing off peoprietary stuff in a negative context anyway. Do we really need to be that explicit?
<BluePanther> there have been a few people who have wanted to use other tools to get teh job done
<evanl> We can specify that all internal NOSW documents be done internally in OpenDocument (but that would require upgrading to OpenOffice2)
<evanl> Maybe we should say that public documents must be in PDF format (fairly open). 
<BluePanther> or ODF
<BluePanther> graphic in png?
<evanl> ODF is great for internal work but will shut out big chunks of the public we want to reach. So I suggest ODF for internal and editable docs, PDF for external docs. Graphics in png, audio/video in ogg, etc.
<BluePanther> some have suggested html
<BluePanther> but my  concern with that is display is not consistant
<evanl> It depends on what the intent is. Personally I can't get excited tallking about tools and formats. If we know what we're trying to accomplish with OSW, I would hope that participants know what makes sense.
<BluePanther> OK I think license might be enough
<BluePanther> what about restrictions on participants, or activites?
<evanl> The aim of OSW is to promote FOSS. If everyone works in that direction the rest will fall into place, no?
<evanl> We want to demonstrate that open tools and formats can do all that the proprietary stuff can do. But intolerance of proprietary tools (or their users) IMO brings us down to the level of the FUDmongers
<BluePanther> what about sales during hte event?
<evanl> Such as... hardware? Distro CDs? What else? Would someone come to an open source event to buy proprietary stuff?
<BluePanther> perhaps T-shirts, coffee mugs
<evanl> Should sponsors such as IBM and Novell and Red Hat be peddling their stuff at OSW events? I'm personally ambivalent but I think there's a careful line to be drawn befire it comes across as too tacky. I just don't know what that line is....
<milan__> Question is wouldpeople use Open Source to *sell* proprietary stuff? See "Oracle", "IBM" :)
<milan__> Do we want that?
<evanl> Swag I have no problem with. At a national level we should probably be making stuff that local groups can sell; nationally we can do the volumes that make sense.
<milan__> If we say "yes" to e.g. Oracle and Novell, what about Microsoft?
<evanl> "yes" to what?
<milan__> Microsoft UNIX Tools for Windows.
<milan__> They have all kinds of stuff for UNIX compatibility.
<evanl> no, I mean what are we saying "yes" to?
<milan__> People using Open Source to pitch non-Open Source
<evanl> I don't see the problem in saying (and stipulating to all participants) that all events and displays must follow the aims of OSW, which are to promote the growth and development of FOSS. MS tools for Unix are for migration away from Linux, and thus don't serve those aims.
<BluePanther> I think they all do, but do we want them doing it at our event,  of just taking orders?
<BluePanther> or as in the past 'gifts for a $20 donation'
<evanl> OK, I'm confused, there are two questions here: (1) can proprietary vendors participate? (2) Can/should they sell goods at the event?
<evanl> which question are we dealing with here?
<BluePanther> I agree, I don't want to limit who can attend, but what do we permit them to do once on our show floor
<evanl> Well, it is a legitimate question whether MS should be allowed to exhibit a "get the facts" display...
<milan__> I think that it would be tough to go to Novell, and ask them for $10K in sponsorship money, then tell them they can't pitch NDS
<BluePanther> perhaps tie the right to retail to sponsorship level
<milan__> Then you give fuel to the "you're just MS-bashing" critics.
<evanl> Well, it is Open Source Week. They'd be pretty foolish investing money in OSW, only to be spending the opportunity to peddle proprietary goods.
<milan__> I mean, on the Microsoft thing.
<milan__> Anyway, if the plan is to raise a ton of sponsorship money, we're not going to be able to dictate what sponsors can do. 
<BluePanther> I suppose we do have some control in who we ask
<evanl> This is my own opinion, but OSW is part of an advocacy campaign. If someone wants to hear Microsoft they're not hard to find. But i personally wouldn't give them a soapbox
<milan__> What if one of their salespeople asks?
<evanl> "The goal of OSW is to promote the use and development of FOSS. All displays and presentations at OSW must be conducted towards this aim."
<milan__> Or at least consistent with it.
<evanl> That's just my opinion of what I'd like to see, not official CLUE dictum/
<evanl> But perhaps it _should_ be official policy
<milan__> Of course. We're just putting up "what if" scenarios, and that's good at this stage.
<BluePanther> it's always good to have what ifs answered in advance, 
<milan__> Or at least to ask the questions.
<evanl> Like I said, Oracle is in a strange situation (as is CA, Adobe, and others who may be involved). They like Linux as a platform, but obviously won'gt be promoting Postgres or MySQL...
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<milan__> Yes. Exactly.
<BluePanther> so what about T-shirts and coffee cups?
<dle> milan__ said: "There is overlap between OCLUG and OSW..."  In terms of persons, but in no official way are the two necessarily linked.
<milan__> I just don't want us to get into the "I'd rather be right than consistent" thing.
<evanl> I figure it this way. We need not carve things in stone, and there _will_ be some variation from city to city (things that might be legit here may not be legit in another place). So long as we have an explicit mission, request that all participants (including sponsors and exhibitors) abide by those aims, and let local groups do the 'enforcement', we should be OK.
<milan__> are you talking about t-shirts or proprietary software?
<milan__> (I'm just kidding)
<dle> POC = ?
<milan__> point of contact?
<evanl> T-shirts and coffee cups. IMO, can be a combination of national and local (though if we do them nationally we can get the volume pricing that allows the stuff to be sold at good cost/quality)
<BluePanther> I was thinking about some other firm bringing them to sell
<milan__> What about the osw.ca website?
<milan__> Right now it's Ottawa-specific, and hosted be me.
<evanl> 3rd parties bringing swag to sell? I'd say that's a local call. It could be tacky unless it's reasonably limited in scale.
<BluePanther> would we ask for a cut of sales?
<evanl> As for the website... I wouldn't worry about (or change) it for now. There will be a part of the CLUE website (moving to Drupal by years's end) dedicated to NOSW. Keep using osw.ca for Ottawa -- you invented it, after all, and I have no intention of stealing that thunder. May at a certain point it'll be worthwhile to have a front-page link from that to the CLUE national activity.
<evanl> Maybe there could be subdomains; regina.osw.ca, halifax.osw.ca, etc.
<dle> evanl said: "Well, it is a legitimate question whether MS should be allowed to exhibit a "get the facts" display..."  I say no -- those things of theirs have nothing to do with facts.
<normand> Hi! Jjust got back (22:20) to find that my connection had dropped, Could someone  place a copy of the log it on pastebin.ca?
<dle> I'll do it.
<evanl> For Mike's question about asking for a cut of sales ,.. I think it's legit, but keep in mind that most orgs that will be selling swag (as opposed to giving it away) would be non-profits themselves