pcplantdb

[Stephanie Gerson <sgerson@stanfordalumni.org>]

Wow, I should never go a day without reading posts…

First of all, I wanted to thank Scott Pittman for his encouraging letter.  
And I will make sure that we meet the requirements of the granting 
organization, so that the Permaculture Institute’s ability to receive 
grants in the future is not compromised!  Also Scott, if you’d rather not 
wade through all these posts, I will gladly send you periodic updates of 
how the project is coming along.

And second of all…too incredible….can it really be true?…no, not 
possible…but really?…I don’t believe it…but yes…yes, I think
so…nahh…yes, 
I’m sure of it…we…we…we…we have a name!  Permaculture.info. 
Perfect.  I 
dig it.  (Actually, David had offered me the name as well, and I had 
completely forgotten – so thanks Chad.)  yeehaw partners.

Other orders of business:
-PROJECT NAME – ok so we have a domain name.  yay.  But what are we going 
to call ourselves?  Permaculture.info?  As in: what do we call the 
project itself – on grant applications, when discussing it, etc.?  Am I 
just obsessed with names or something (speaking of, I still want 
distinguishing names for John S. and John H.)  I liked Lawrences idea of 
Permaculture Information Web.  

(Also, not too into buying lots of domain names, but if you want to 
Lawrence – go for it.)  

-DOMAIN OWNERSHIP – After reading Scott Pittman’s letter, I think the 
Permaculture Institute ought to have ownership, until we choose to 
transfer it to ourselves if we gain non-profit status or to another non-
profit.  What do others think?  Do people think we should go for non-
profit status?  (Please respond with a yes or no.)  And if so, when?  
(Please respond with now or later.)  And if we do decide to go for non-
profit, I will probably include this in my post to the PC lists (which I 
will write tomorrow night) and ask if anyone has experience with the 
process and would be willing to help us out.  

Also, Scott Pittman sits on the board of the Permaculture Credit Union 
(or used to, at least) – so he might be able to help us out on that end.  
Would we still need to create a trust, or would the Permaculture 
Institute take care of that?

-ZOPE/IBIBLIO – Thanks for writing to them, Chad!  And maybe your offer 
of support/donation of a server will convince them?  If they are planning 
to host ZOPE at some point anyway, why not start now, ne c’est pas?  

But Chad, I understand your predicament about plunging ahead with ZOPE.  
Group – we gotta come to a consensus for Chad’s sake (but first wait to 
hear what Ibiblio says).  If Ibiblio is not willing to host ZOPE – do we 
go ZOPE or Ibiblio???  

-LICENSE – Thanks for the update, Rich.  So, if I understand what you 
wrote correctly, there is no need to do anything right now (i.e. apply 
for a license) – we simply need to include specific lines in the code?

-RESPONSIBILITIES – Looks like John H. and John S. (see?  we definitely 
need other names for these dudes) are splitting what were formerly John 
S.’s tasks…I think.  Can this be clarified?  Can both of you send me a 
mini-blurb about your role/contribution to the project – just to include 
on biographies in grant proposals?   gracias.  And thanks John H. for 
offering to volunteer!

-PROJECT PLAN – don’t worry if we are falling behind “schedule,” the 
project plan is a tool.  And if you aren’t meeting deadlines, just let me 
know and I will adapt the project plan.  The calendar is intended to be 
dynamic, co-evolving…and guess what else it is?  Mais oui, it is also a 
web of relationships!  Which is actually the most important reason you 
need to update me – tasks are related and some depend on others.  Like 
this: the process of gaining non-profit status might be facilitated by a 
Lovely volunteer on one of the PC lists, but this person won’t know about 
the project until Stephanie sends a post about it, but she didn’t want to 
send a post about it until we had a name…  Aha, a web of relationships.  
So again, no worries about meeting uber-specific deadlines – just let me 
know what yer status is.  Allrighty?
  
On that tip, thank you Chad, John S., and John H. for giving me updates.  
And Rich, I can read what you’re up to, but it’s helpful if you can 
relate it to what’s written in the project plan.

Once again, below I’ve cut and pasted updated tasks for this week.  I’ve 
also made a list of decisions that need to be made.  Muy improtante that 
you check the decisions and respond to them, so they can get decided.
 
-MISCELLANEOUS -
-Thanks Lawrence for describing the difference/relationship between the 
Permaculture Information Web (I like the sound of it!) and the PC 
Knowledgebase.  You wrote, “the PC Knowledgebase will exist in websites, 
one on ibiblio and one in commercial webspace, permasphere.com, one or 
more wikis and the pc-knowledgebase and permaculture mailing lists, and 
maybe a Blog. It will contain a general collection of information about 
permaculture, agriculture, alternative energy, allternative architecture 
and building, appropriate technology, and indigenous cultures 
knowledgebases and technologies.  I would like all of the above to be 
incorporated in HG.”   I feel like I’m still missing something though –

if all of the above are incorporated in the Permaculture Information Web 
and in PCKnowledgebase, then I still don’t understand how the two are 
different.  Are they different, the same, or is one a component of the 
other?  

-Rich wrote, “A button will be displayed on the wiki allowing people to 
edit the page.”  Where is that elusive button??  I can never find it.  
Thanks for the compliment, but I am most certainly not a wiki master…yet…

-Did either of the Johns resolve the Bugzilla issue?  John H. wrote, “I 
have intially set up Bugzilla for John S. to check out. I believe he is 
still identifying customization he wants done for issue tracking.”  What 
do you say, John S.?

Phewww, I guess I’m also somewhat OTE at the moment.  Then again, 
compared to John H., I am on vacation.  Mmmm…I like that cold beer and a 
nap idea… 

on that note
peace
*Stephanie


p.s. hey Chad, did you spell grammar wrong on purpose?
p.p.s.  whoa there partner, you call yourself a 'stubborn asshole,
unwilling to compromise'?!  I completely disagree with you (or perhaps I 
unwilling to compromise) 
p.p.p.s.  speaking of…what’s up with David Blume?
p.p.p.p.s.  is anyone reading this
p.p.p.p.p.s.  this is a pyramid of ps


+++++++++

Decisions:
∑ Our domain name will be permaculture.info, but what will our project 
name be?  Permaculture Information Web?  Or otherwise?  (ideally 
something similar to the domain name, so as not to confuse users)
∑ Domain ownership – do all agree that the Permaculture Institute own the

domain name until we decide to transfer ownership to another entity?
∑ Do we want to go for non-profit status?  If so, when? 
∑ If Ibiblio refuses to host ZOPE, what do we do?

Week 3: August 8-14
∑ Everyone – respond to decisions that need to be made, listed above
∑ Chad and Rich
o a working database (with no real data) with php connection and simple 
front end (basically just checking that the different bits can work 
together)
o issue tracker working, cvs working, zope working
o Get it running somewhere/somehow
o Rich – start doing whatever needs to be done in order to get the latest 
version of PFAF that is under the CC-BY-NC-SA (2 weeks to complete)
∑ Stephanie
o write first draft of email describing project to PC lists, sends to 
team for feedback
o write up description user interface/experience, send to list
o continue updating project calendar
∑ John H.
o Review changes in the configuration of Zope 2.7.2 for releasing it to 
development access
o Get zope deployment platform setup for Chad (sometime in the next 3-4 
weeks)
o Back-end Q/A assistance (throughout process)
∑ John S.
o prepares and posts FAQs and other documentation on use of issue tracker 
and general software test/QA procedures and guidelines
o organize for user test of first “build” (to happen weekly from now on?)


+++++++++++++++
Stephanie Gerson
sgerson@stanfordalumni.org
(c) 415.871.5683


____________________________________________________________________