Re: [lp-ca-on] Starting phase #1

[Sergio Durigan Junior]

On Wednesday, September 24 2014, Blaise Alleyne wrote:

> On 23/09/14 10:15 PM, Sergio Durigan Junior wrote:
>> [...] We already have a "regular team meeting" set up, even though we don't
>> really know the details.  BTW, it is really good to define the
>> place/time that we are going to meet in advance (say, 2 weeks before),
>> so that we can start spamming it to other friend groups (if they let us,
>> of course).
>
> Agreed.
>
> Better yet, if we can pick a regular location, date/time, e.g. Third Monday of
> each month or something.

Oh, sorry if I wasn't clear enough, that's exactly what I meant: that we
should have a regular schedule for meetings.

> Re: location, I'd suggest a bar in the Yonge/Eglinton area maybe over coffee
> shop (since we had the coffee shop close on us this week).

I'll let this one for you guys to choose; I'm new in the area and don't
know many places.

> Re: date/time, I'd suggest (a) we start with a time that generally works for 
> the
> three of us who are involved so far, but (b) we cross-reference meetup times 
> of
> some other ally groups to avoid conflicts if possible. For example, we
> definitely wouldn't want to be meeting at the same time as GTALUG.

Yeah.

> We might need to compile a list of ally groups (which wouldn't be a bad idea
> anyways), and note their usual monthly meeting times, to see if we could carve
> some space for a unique LibrePlanet time.

Yep, that's a good idea.  Again, I think you could start the list, given
your knowledge of this topic :-).

>> In BR, our meetings were called "librebar", as a contrast
>> to "open bar" (I don't know if you have "open bars" here; they're
>> parties where you don't need to pay for drinks [the drinks as free as in
>> price], so we wanted to make this little wordplay). 
>> 
>
> I'm not sure if it totally works in English. We do have the concept of an 
> "open
> bar," typically at a wedding or some kind of party. I didn't get the play on
> words from "librebar" alone though.

Hm, OK.

The play is:

- Open bar's are parties where you don't have to pay for the drink
  (thus, free as in price), which is somewhat related to the (lack of)
  ideology of Open Source, where many "supporters" only value the "free
  as in price", but not "as in freedom".

- LibreBar's, OTOH, are meetings to discuss Free Software (and
  freedom!), but the drinks are not going to be free, so each person has
  to pay for his/her own drink :-).

Sorry if it's not as funny as you were expecting :-P.

> But... still doesn't hurt -- "librebar" still makes sense as a LibrePlanet bar
> night, even if the play on words isn't obvious!
>
> I'm cool with calling it a "librebar" night or something.

Yeah, I was just proposing ideas, we can call it whatever we like :-).

> So, I'm not attached to WordPress or anything, but the reason I suggested it
> first was that you can have a flexible website up and running in minutes, with
> thousands of themes already available, the ability to have a blog with 
> comments
> and RSS, etc etc.

Which is a fair reason, yeah.

> But, none of that is critical on day one, especially if this mailing list and
> the IRC channel will be the primary ways to communicate with members. 
> (Though, a
> web-based option might also be more accessible to non-devs?)

And I also agree with this statement.  For day one, I think just a
simple HTML webpage is enough.  We can grow from there.

And yeah, having something in the web is important to reach more people,
because most of them think IRC is dead...

> Is the hesitation with WordPress just software freedom issues, or also bloat,
> MySQL, security issues, etc.?

Mainly about being too heavy.  I am a big fan of static HTML pages (ref:
<http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/>), and I really think it helps more to
pass our message than some fancy, heavy page...

> I would probably drop in something like Bootstrap though as a framework to 
> make
> it look a bit nicer, since I'm no designer. (But I would copy the Boostrap 
> files
> to the web server, to avoid privacy issues of using versions hosted by Google 
> or
> whomever else.)

Right, I have no idea what Boostrap is, but if it's Free Software, then
I'm OK with it :-).

> The end result would be content in a single HTML file that's easily editable 
> in
> any text editor, with just some markup applied to the HTML to make the layout
> and presentation look a bit nicer.
>
> Would that work?

Perfect!

> I guess direct SFTP access would be ideal, though not necessary.

OK, works for me too.

> And, registering our own domain might be a good idea. How about 
> libreplaneton.ca?
>
> (libreplanet.ca is also available... I wouldn't want to be presumptuous and
> pretend to be all of Canada, but at the same time it could be a useful 
> domain...
> even if we just put a link to libreplaneton.ca from libreplanet.ca, and then 
> to
> any other Canadian LP groups, now or in the future?)
>
> I can register the domain name if you want. I use Hover.com as my domain name
> registrar. But I don't mind if you are using another domain name registrar
> already. (Not sure if they'll all allow you to register .ca though.)

<http://libreplaneton.ca> sounds perfect to me.  And I agree with not
being presumptuous regarding the domain :-).  But it may also be a good
idea to register libreplanet.ca, yeah.  That's *almost* what we did in
BR: we wanted to register libreplanet.org.br, but in order to register
.org.br domains you have to go through so many bureaucratic steps that
we gave up the idea and registered libreplanetbr.org instead.  The idea
is that this domain will act as a hub for all LibrePlanet's in Brazil,
and we actually have a sp.libreplanetbr.org and a es.libreplanetbr.org,
for both LibrePlanet's there (LibrePlanet ES was founded after SP, and
it is inactive unfortunately).

Anyway, that might be a good idea for us too.  But...  baby steps :-).

As for the registrar, I use Gandi for all my domains (except for
libreplanetbr.org, which is on Dreamhost because of historical reasons).
I have never heard of Hover.com, but what I try to do when I choose a
registrar is to take a look at their position regarding some sensitive
topics (mainly SOPA/PIPA).  This actually boils down to looking at the
following list:

 
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/moveyourdomain-protest-internet-blacklist-bills>

Which I still find very useful.  So yeah, if Hover has a decent stand on
those matters, I'm OK with it!

> In the absence of a LP Ontario logo, we could potentially use the main LP 
> logo?
> I'm assuming it's freely licensed? (Though, could be restrictively licensed,
> e.g. the FSF likes to use CC BY-ND, though not sure if they'd put ND
> restrictions on logos, usually just essays...)
>
> http://libreplanet.org/w/skins/common/images/groups-logo.png

That's actually our only option, I think.  And yeah, we can use the LP
logo, though (irony...) I could not find its license when I tried!!!
Blergh :-/.

Mea culpa: AFAIR, we did not license our lp-br-sp logo as well...

> But yeah, an Ontario logo could be cool eventually.

I think it is necessary :-).  My wife is good in designing things, so I
will ask her to come up with something for us.  Let's see how it goes!

> I haven't done printing directly myself, but Alleyne Inc. has, or I could ask
> around for recommendations.

Nice!  Thanks a lot :-).

> Re: costs, I guess we get a quote and pool our money together for a first 
> print run?
>
> How did you cover costs for these things with LP São Paulo?

Heh...  Free Software activism demands some "sacrifices", so I basically
paid for everything (except for the VPS; for that, we collectively
paid).

> T-shirts are a great idea! Though, I'd consider this as a slightly later step
> once we have more members.

Sure thing!

Cheers,

-- 
Sergio
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