mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Joris van der Hoeven <address@hidden>]

Hi,

Regarding our discussion about the creation of an association for
scientific software, I forward some interesting suggestions by one
of the founders of the OFSET association (with a similar purpose
in the case of educational software).

Best wishes, Joris

----- Forwarded message from Hilaire Fernandes <address@hidden> -----

X-Original-To: address@hidden
From: Hilaire Fernandes <address@hidden>
To: Joris van der Hoeven <address@hidden>
Cc: OFSET Council <address@hidden>
Subject: Re: Association
X-Enigmail-Version: 0.93.0.0
X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new-20030616-p10 at math.u-psud.fr

Hello Joris,

(for recall Joris, author of TeXmacs, is also member of the OFSET since
several years)

I transfered your message to the OFSET council mailing list. We got some
discussion but in fact the discussion switched very quickly to internal
matter of OFSET as: should we have the member@ mailing list open or not
to non OFSET members?

As I understood you are mainly interested in the scope of supporting the
*development* of free scientific software. The basic principle is really
the same of OFSET, we are targeted in developing free software for
education.

Ok, I have to confess something, I consider that until know we, at
OFSET, have largely failed in this department. Until now we have not
been able to provide any serious support to help the development of free
software for education. I think the problem now is that the council is
not serious about this idea, so it is more a misguidance problem and we
need to rethink what OFSET is about.

The other aspect to get funding is you need good brand, this is
something I have tried to promote, we got some big successes (Unesco,
invitation by the EU commission to a worskhop on eLearning, and recently
invitation to Taiwan by the MoE (thanks CK)), but given the nature of
free software communities (a lot of very very personal interests),
someones may try to ignore you or even worst duplicate your effort. This
is something you have to keep in mind for your project, because thus
tempted to ignore you may also have some capacity to negated your
effort, so you may better try to get thus one in your wagon from the
beginning.

However, regarding the promotion we can still do *HUGE* progress. For
example recently was organized in Italy by Andrea Centomo the
vice-president of OFSET for Italy, a workshop on free software for
science (http://www.math.unipd.it/~zanella/openmath05/), but although
Andrea set up this event, the OFSET participation appears no where in
the web site. If we cannot fix this kind of problem, it is clear we are
going no where, and I personnaly prefer to spend my time in other place
and project.

This public relation thing is also something you have to remember as
well, and you will have to keep pushing the other people to think PR,
they may also not like this, but logically this is really what you must
do when you decide to go public with a legal organization.

Now regarding your question.

1) To set up a Loi1901 organization you need at minimum two person: a
president and treasurer. But I suggest you to invite a lot of important
people involved in your domain to participate from the beginning, in
particularly some of this people who like to speak a lot but do nothing,
otherwise these ones may cause some trouble in the future. It is better
to get some of these ones close to you since the beginning
2) We have arround 100 members I guess, I don't know the exact number.
3) Regarding the members, people from any country can be member AND ALSO
 president of the association. The 1st president of OFSET was from
California.

A final proposition, in case you think OFSET could help, I think you and
other people involed in your project could join the OFSET council and
take some position up to presidency. But it is propably better you set
up a specific organisation.
Oh by the way, were you serious when you wrote about selling T-shirt to
support the development? I personnaly think these T-shirt & co things
does not worth the effort.

I wish you a nice 31 January 2005 and a happy new year.

Hilaire



Joris van der Hoeven a écrit :
> Salut Hilaire,
> 
> Comme tu as peut-etre deja compris de mon email de hier,
> on est en train de penser a creer une association
> pour les logiciels scientifiques libres.
> Le but principal (au debut du moins) est d'avoir un compte
> en banque pour pouvoir recevoir des donations ou pour pouvoir
> vendre des CD's, livres, T-shirts, etc., afin de financer
> le developpement et la pub pour des logiciels.
> 
> Un membre sur la liste parlait tres justement d'Ofset et
> la possibilite de se joindre a Ofset. Je ne sais pas ce que
> tu en penses (les buts etant un peu differents), mais quoi
> qu'il en soit, je pense qu'il peut etre une bonne idee
> pour nous de s'inspirer un peu de ce que vous avez fait et,
> par la suite, de voir ce que l'on pourrait faire ensemble.
> 
> Quelques petites questions :
> 1) Ca t'a pris beaucoup de temps pour monter Ofset ?
> 2) Vous avez combien de membres actuellement ?
> 3) Est-ce que des personnes de la CEE (comme moi)
>    peuvent etre membre et/ou president d'une assoc 1901 ?
> 
> Amities, Joris
> 
> -------------
> P.S. : a propos de la bande des profs de maths avec qui
> je t'avais mis en contact : ils se mettent en route assez
> lentement, mais surement. Je te tiendrai au courant de leur
> progres concret. En tout cas, si ca marche, ca peut recevoir
> le soutien de l'INRIA, donc ca peut etre interessant.
> 

-- 
http://www.ofset.org/petition
Pétition de soutien au développement
de logiciels libres pour l'éducation.

----- End forwarded message -----