Re: CARES

[Adam Tauno Williams <adam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Hello, all. Peter Buxton here. I'm not likely to be at ANY future
>meetings, as I just accepted a (really good) job that runs second shift 
>:( but I do  wish to declare my intent of remaining a current member of 
>KLUG, AND...

Great,  'cause we'd miss you if you left.  Your effort on the Boogies project is
much appreciated.

>I've been volunteering at CARES, Community AIDS Resource and Education 
>Services, here in Kalamazoo (I've been adding users, keeping backups 
>current, &c.) They have: about 12 Win95/98 workstations, 1 Netware 4.11
>server (Compaq, DAT tape, SCSI-2, lotsa mem, not much else known), ISDN
>through WMIS, a bunch of repeaters and hubs in the basement, networked
>HP  printers, faxserver and tape backup on the server, shared files, and 
>Groupwise mail.

Groupwise?  Never seen that personally.

>Bob Brown (pre-election) and I looked this over and and proposed to
>replace the whole shebang with Linux. (ATW suggested three Linux boxen: 
>one web server, one firewall, one everything else server; my feeling is that
>this is an unsophisticated, cash-poor non-profit and we should install the
>latter two but take the standard ISP web hosting as a welcome freebie. But 
>more on this later.)

Just suggested a seperate web-server because they work best on the outside of a
firewall.  If someone else hosts their pages, then cool!  Still recommend a
seperate firewall,  but everyone probably agrees with me on that.

>Anyway, Dirk, Bob and I were mailing each other about it, and I asked if
>we would charge a fee. After a few exchanges, I realized that this is kind
>of silly, and a bit unfair to Dirk. After all, the treasurer should be in
>on it as well, as well as those people besides myself who will volunteer to
>work on CARES--they're doing the work, they should have a voice in what they
>think KLUG should (or should not!) charge for member time.

Probably a topic that needs to be debated at an officer's meeting.

>(Our only other KLUG model for this is Boogies, but Boogies is a
>for-profit  business, and very different from CARES. Boogies pays not only 
>for the  hardware we purchase and install (as would CARES) but also the
>maintenance we provide on a profit-raising system. On the other hand, to
>charge nothing would seem to invite abuse, if not from CARES then from other
>organizations we might help in the future.)

I don't think we NEED to charge a fee to avoid abuse, KLUG can always refuse or
drop any projects in the future.  We should get public credit,  a small poster
in the window, little icon & link on the web page, etc....  As an applicant for
NPO status KLUG is "obligated" to participate in the community.  (All the
afore-mentioned is my opinion,  I am not an elected KLUG officer,  those guys
over-rule, pre-empt, and veto everything I say if they disagree.  And their
opinion will be the right one).

P.S.  I'd be willing to help,  although I'm in Grand Rapids and that may limit
me.

Systems and Network Administrator
Morrison Industries
1825 Monroe Ave NW.
Grand Rapids, MI. 49505