Regarding
the requests you made in a public discussion on 15th July 2020,
an online meeting was conducted on 19th July. Below, you
will find
the responses to queries
to the Free Software communities of Kerala.
1)
Volunteers for framing a guideline and criteria for funding
We
need to have a transparent process for applying for funding and
.
The outcome of it will be validated by a group of volunteers
representing various Free Software communities. We will need to
know the budget available in advance and .
These can be decided in a fixed time frame, once in 3 months or
once in 6 months in which the schedule to apply, discuss and
decide will be announced in advance.
Manoj
Karingamadathil, Naveen P F, Ranjith Siji, Sruthi Chandran are
some of the names that got suggested in the discussion who can
volunteer. More members are to be suggested or decided by the
respective communities. We need a clear understanding of how the
committee is going to function (how frequent the committee will
meet) once the suggestion is accepted. The group of people from
community who becomes part of the committee is expected to serve
for a fixed duration, i.e. not permanently. Duration has to be
finalized. A period of 1 year came up as a suggestion.
2)
Proposals from member groups for developing 2 Open fonts not
fontforged variants
Since
only few
community members were present who could decide on applying for
such proposals or mentoring scholars, it was decided to reach
out to them for proposals and suggestions. (Manoj
Karingamadathil who worked with SMC in the past was present but
could not be reached for comment during discussion due to
technical issues). The funding offer needs to be shared with the
wider community and invite people to apply, we found it would be
best if ICFOSS can post this on their official website which can
be shared widely.
3)
Contribution of case studies for impact of Libre software in
Kerala
Here
are the ones we could find within the give period, we would like
to volunteer if ICFOSS is ready to make an effort to document
free software history of Kerala.
4)
List of Communities and their Nomenclature
It
was decided to create an initial list based on the above and get
community to add any missing communities. Those who represent
different communities can add them to this list:
5)
List of Captains, representatives for inclusion in the board
for project/event selection and fellow selection.
It
was agreed that this group can have same representatives from
the funding guideline and criteria framing committee until an
evaluated decision is taken to have a separate group.
Below
are some more points we would like to add to the responses.
Appendix
1:
Points
from meeting with previous ICFOSS director last year which were
not addressed by the current Director in the telegram/matrix
group discussion:
1)
The brainstorming session highlighted the need for focusing on
Free Software contribution instead of academic profile as ICFOSS
fellows selection criteria.
2)
Kannan emphasized the need to develop Free Software Developers
instead of just Software Developers and involvement of community
in trainings is essential for that.
3)
Sebin proposed Google Summer of Code or Outreachy like mentoring
programs where community manages the program and ICFOSS provide
funding.
4)
Ramesh from KSEB suggested ICFOSS should spearhead more Free
Software adoption campaigns in targeted areas like library
management, 12th standard syllabus, DTP centers, etc.
5)
ICFOSS servers will be accessible for free software projects as
soon as the current server maintenance is over
We
are not expecting that all suggestions will be accepted, but we
expect a reply even if a suggestion is not acceptable.
Appendix
2:
Points
raised by Anivar Aravind,
1)
ICFOSS needs to be a facilitator for both FOSS projects and FOSS
requirements of the government. It should not be a big fat
research-only organization/funding platform/ownership holder of
FOSS community produced work.
2)
Major gap I see in this process is empowering room for free
software choices and suggestions in the government. I know it is
not easy, but it is a continuous battle. This needs policy
briefs within government, documenting best practices and more
story telling based on FOSS projects and their adoptions.
3)
Initiate and build institutional support for voluntary
initiatives and help them to be sustainable communities. Eg.
Building a Kerala rescue based preparedness stack (I heard some
good initiatives happening).
4)
Research Partnership with FOSS organizations and communities in
Kerala and outside. Facilitate value for FOSS projects via this
associations, more contributors, mentors, cross community
expertise curation, etc. This will avoid Indian FOSS projects
searching for FOSSASIA type organizations abroad to provide
organization home.
5)
Not all FOSS projects are in a position to build campus
presence. Use campus presence of ICFOSS for joint/partnered
event organizing help. Communities can easily provide expertise
while organizing efforts can be done by ICFOSS's campus
representatives.
6)
Build and maintain a list of high priority projects as per the
governance + local needs. Priorities contributions to this via a
task based bounty based support structure
7)
Decouple startup/product/event/certificate focused campus club
structure to contribution based model. Contribution shouldn't be
code alone.
8)
Use Open organization structure to maximum extend, use issue
trackers and build transparency around programs, planning and
participation. Invest efforts in addressing issues. This will
avoid a lot of conflicts even though it may be a bit difficult
in start.
Appendix 3:
Point 1: We
will follow up after two weeks unless ICFOSS provides a rough
estimate of how much time it will take in their reply.
Point 2: We
will follow up after a week if ICFOSS does not publish the offer
on their website.
Point 3: We
expect ICFOSS to share their plan for publishing existing case
studies and undertaking more case studies. We will follow up
after two weeks.
Point 4: We
expect ICFOSS to maintain this list on their website with
procedure to update the list. Alternatively FSCI can also
maintain this list. We will follow up after a week.
Point 5: We
expect ICFOSS to provide a plan for including community
representatives in their selection committees. We will follow up
after two weeks.
Point 6: We
have taken an open approach to the new director even when
previous experiences were not good. Our support will depend on
how ICFOSS respond to community concerns.
Appendix 4:
We'd like to
know the the status of your promise during the telegram/matrix
interaction earlier "to issue circular on allowing 20% of work
time on Free Software projects".