[Devel] Some notes about the new foundation for Skolelinux

[Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@xxxxxxxxxx>]

If you have been following the progress of the Skolelinux project
lately, you probably already know we are working on creating a
foundation to handle most of the project funding and get an
organisation that government agencies can trust.  This foundation is
already up and running.  There are a few administrative details left
(like finding an appropriate name and formulating the statutes), but
the basic ideas are in place.  The plans for the foundation were
decided upon in the meeting summarised in
<URL:http://developer.skolelinux.no/info/prosjektet/referater/troverdig_org.txt>.

The foundation is given a loan (ansvarlig lån, not sure what the
English term should be) of approximately NOK 4 400 000 from the
Norwegian Unix User Group Foundation (NUUGF) to keep the Skolelinux
organisation going the next two-three years.  This funding shall be
used to make the Skolelinux project a success, and also to make sure
the project has some sustainable funding for the future.

The use of the funds will be supervised by Vidar Bakke from NUUGF, and
he will be on the board for this new foundation.

To increase the chance of getting a releasable version of Skolelinux
soon, a few people will be hired to work part or full time on
Skolelinux.  We are aware that it is not possible to demand that
volunteers stick to deadlines and work on the more boring part of a
project.  A releasable version of Skolelinux demands that someone does
both.

At the moment, three people have been hired.

  - Knut Yrvin to handle external affairs in Norway, like he has been
    doing for the last two years.

  - Ragnar Wisløff to continue development on LTSP and system
    administration stuff.

  - Andreas Schuldei to improve the user administration tools, handle
    testing and bugzilla management, coordinate our Norwegian and
    international developers, and keep in touch with the Debian
    project.

The last person might be a fresh name for some of you.  He is the
Debian developer organising debcamp and debconf3 this summer, the
event co-located with the latest Skolelinux gathering.  He did an
impressive job there, and was asked to join the Skolelinux team
because of this.

As for myself, I will continue to contribute as best as I can on the
technical side of the project, but will do it in my spare time as
always.  My day job will be at USIT, University of Oslo, as it is now.