Re: Thoughts on Arabic support group

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

On Mon, 9.Jul.2001 [16:52:39 -0500]
 Mohammed Elzubeir <elzubeir at fakkir dot net> wrote:
 >What I would like to know is, how much organizational effort are you willing
 >to put into it? If there were to be a site where you would find all these
 >services, what would they be, listing specifics. One thing for sure,
 >Aunyx.org will carry its own messaging forum. Chahine has a collection of
 >php scripts he's been keeping away from me for a while now.. I think it's
 >time to remind him about it ;)

I will do as much as you and the others want me to do with direction (I don't
want to seem overbearing, yet again I'm no software expert as noted earlier).
I don't think you ought to really be too concerned with offering all the
services on the face of earth to attract people though :-)

<SUGGESTIONS-1>

I would suggest the following.  An eye-catching main page with,

 a. main page would include News/local.topics/announcements/etc
 a. project section
 b. mailing-list section (majordomo or similar with an email address per
    project and an announce email for release which people could subscribe to)
 c. CVS section (anonymous download - upload to specific people per project)
 d. a links section to link all the other ARAB development sites

the look-n-feel I'd go with a mixture of freshmeat.net, linuxtoday.com, 
sourceforge.net :-)  (also check out www.fvwm.org as well as www.gnome.org)

I would also suggest using arabhackers.org instead of aunyx.org (or even
fakkir if its yours).  AUNYX is too difficult to remember as well as spell
(if you like we can register something else; come up with something catchy
and easy - I'll fork-out the $40 and put it anyone else's name).

</SUGGESTIONS-1>

OK, so let me rephrase everything that I've read thus far (I'll apologize
in advance for using the word "we" even though I haven't done anything).

1. We for the most part agree on whats being said that the need to get
   organized is there and that we ought to be more product oriented based
   (ie. the more code written by Arabs the better).
2. Certain companies have been contacted for support (the contact happened
   by various people without a consistent request per se).

  - linuxvision
    by Mohammed Elzubeir
    --> ended-up in a religious flame war
  - Sakhr.com
    by Mohammed Elzubeir
    --> got run-around; no response
  - lanbox.com on June.26.2001  (contact at langbox dot com)
    by Nadim Shaikli
    --> no response

  * You might want to save away and augment this list as time passes.

3. The number of Arab programmer per percentage of population is lower
   compared to other cultures.
4. We need to incite and excite people about getting involved somehow; hunting
   previous contributors had proven to be difficult in the past, but should
   not be ruled-out if someone were to do again more throughly (or provide a
   forum to attract such people).
5. Aunyx is a meta project (akin to Gnome) supposed to raise awareness.
6. People tend to say they want to help, but don't really endup doing much.
7. Enough preaching and lets get to suggestions and actual doing (on aunyx).

*NOTE: some of these points will be revisited in the future.

<SUGGESTIONS-2>

I would highly suggest archiving all these emails and displaying them online
in realtime and mailing to the mail-list instead of to individuals.
Majordomo seems to be a favorite out there that is simple and effective
(whatever is decided upon it ought to hide people's email address so that
spam bots don't catch it - similar to what freshmeat does).

I would also suggest listing the mandate, the goal, imminent projects,
long-term projects, help needed list (per action).

</SUGGESTIONS-2>

Comments/suggestions.  What else need to be done ?

Could we start/augment a suggestion list as well as a TODO (Action Item) list ?

 - Nadim