PTP Blog

The staff at PTP is heading down to Owatonna today to visit with the folks at Centro Campesino.

I’ll be taking pictures and trying to post/blog if internet access is available.

even the graphical blogging client requires that you type in html code for things like paragraph breaks and all that.

why?

Somewhere in a previous post I think I talked about my return to Linux and some of the challenges I was running into.

One of the greatest has been with Ximian - now Novell’s Evolution mail client and the Ximian Connector software that enables Evolution to talk to an MS Exchange server.
continue reading…

You know that you’ve spent too much time recently on the tech side of things when you see a headline that says “Memogate: More Documents Allege Fixing of Intel” and think “hmmm, what’s this about Intel? Are they still writing about the Intel and Apple deal?”

Rich Cowan says that he is getting closer to completing the Release 1.0 of Organizers’ Database (ODB), an organizing database that works well for smaller groups. It uses the MS Access database engine. It’s free to download, has a track record and it seems to be becoming open source.

The following was sparked by an email message from Dirk Slater, formerly of the LINC Project, now with the Tactical Technology Collective.

Here’s Dirk message (moved here with Dirk’s permission):

So I take it you’ve all seen the news about Apple’s new partnership with Intel. There’s a lot of speculation about what all this means but the piece that I found most interesting was the one by John Dvorak predicting that this will all lead to linux’s demise.

You can find the story at:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7BD0E8469A-28FC-415D-9281-C97B5FA2CA3D%7D&siteid=mktw&dist=
[note: marketwatch uses a free registration system - you can find a username/password at bugmenot.com]
So hears why I’m emailing the five of you, we all have one thing in common. We’ve chosen Mac’s over linux as the operating system we do the most work on. So does this mean that we’re precursors to the kind of situation that Dvorak is talking about - that it won’t be as detrimental to Windows Market share as it will to Linux.

I think you all know each other - except, Steph and Marek, you don’t know Ric, who is my step-father. Stephanie may never have met Arif, who was part of the first meeting LINC had with Marek way back when and is now working at Progressive Technology Project.

So I know Amanda, Arif, Ric and I had used Linux as a desktop before switching to mac (well Ric was close to using it). I’m pretty sure Stephanie and Marek are similar. I know Linux has come along way as a desktop environment since I switch to OS X nearly three years ago, but does this mean that its only real use will be as a server environment?

And Steph and Marek - what will this mean for the folks we are working with in developing countries who are using linux on the desktop specifically because of licensing issues and the ability to localize (two things that Dvorak doesn’t take into account). Is there enough of a foothold that it will keep Linux on the desktop alive?

I know we’re all very invested in seeing Linux succeed. And I have a feeling Microsoft is not too upset about all this, in fact I just saw a statement from their mac microsoft office folks saying they will be continuing to develop microsoft office for mac. What if they actually port Access to OS X? Would that kill linux completely? At least in the states?

I know Arif and Amanda have both heard me say that if a grassroots groups were starting fresh, they’d do best to spend a little extra to get Mac’s and it would pay off in the long run. I guess there will be an opportunity soon to have people switch without having to completely invest in new equipment. Should they switch? Amanda and Arif - is this just part of my rich fantasy life? Amanda, given that you really weren’t given a choice when you started at LINC, would you have switched, given the choice? Is LINC sticking with OS X?

Anyways read the article and if you feel up to it - let me (and the other trendsetting linux killers on this email) know what you think.

Dirk

PTP’s board - made up of a majority of organizers - has decided that the lack of a decent database solution is hobbling organizations as they attempt to grow. From what we’re seeing, a major obstacle to successful mobilizing is the lack of an easy to use database in this sector. While there have been products put together in the nineties, as standalone applications they are no longer meeting the needs of organizing as organizations need to straddle both the offline and online organizing environment. Although the vast majority of the people that community organizing works with are off the ‘net, organizers still have a need to move up to a platform that allows them to work in both sectors. This need will increase in the next five years. Finding and developing the application is only a part of the project, though. Without training and technical support, it will fail. Consequently, we are going to put together a comprehensive project plan which will be used in a proposal to seek funding from foundations and major donors.

We’ve got an interest in the CivicCRM project of SocialSource Foundation because, once it is successfully built, it would make a great platform for this project. We still have some homework to do, but we think it’s a good candidate and we’re glad that they are investing in this development.