More funding

[Isam Bayazidi <bayazidi at arabeyes dot org>]

Salam there...
  Today I met Daoud Kuttab, manager of AmmanNet Radio (www.ammannet.net). he 
is interested in funding one of our projects that may need funding. paying 
money for a full timer to work on the project they choose. I gave him a look 
into the 'same-old' project list. It seems that it was too technical for him. 
I told him that we will provide him with an updated project list, and let 
them see what project they may be interested in funding. It seems that the 
funding is not coming from him or his Radio Station, but from an organization 
back in the states that fund OpenSource Projects. He is aware that the 
outcome of any project will be in Open Source license, and he welcomes that 
and would be glad to have that. 
  Now he need some signs from Arabeyes that make him feel more comfortable, 
such as he thinks that it is not good that Arabeyes is not registered 
anywhere as an organization, I told him that we are in the process of solving 
that, so he suggested that registering it in Jordan as a Charity Org may fit. 
I am not sure about that, I will return to my Friend lawyer for that. 
  Now the other commitment he want from Arabeyes, is to finish the project or 
reach the agreed upon status within the previously agreed upon deadline, he 
liked to call it community deliver time :-) I tried to insure him that this 
would not be a probelm. He wants us (me in Amman) to sign some papers for 
commitment to deliver. I am not sure about that now, but I am sure that I 
will not sign any papers unless I am sure that the deliver time is 
reachable:-) don't blame me ..

so we are talking about funding a certain project that they choose, leaving 
the door open for us to decide what to do with the money, either give it to 
one programmer to work on it, give it to a team, take a portion of it to an 
Arabeyes account, and use the rest to fund full-time 
programmers/developers/etc .. One of the thing he mentioned was to pay for us 
to create a number of nice fonts in a certain amount of time, maybe he 
mentioned this as an example. Of course it is up to us to decide what the 
project they choose will cost to finish in a certain amount of time. 

Just to let you know, there is some short-term business that I will do with 
him, helping him migrate to Linux (all the PCs in AmmanNet offices, including 
server) and train his staff, and set up what he may need for his business 
(Sound editing programs, Recorders, Encoders, streaming servers and so).

Take care, and Happy new year, 

Isam Bayazidi