[Axiom-developer] RE: proposal to create the Axiom Foundation (was: bounties etc.)

[Page, Bill]

Martin, Camm and Bob,

Please send me by email a user id and password that you want
to use to access the AxiomFoundation web page. (See discussion
below.)

On Thursday, November 25, 2004 11:14 AM Martin wrote:
> 
> Another issue: We need to make sure that we fund only projects
> somebody works on anyway. 
>

Martin, thank you for your suggestions on an initial bounty
list in your previous email.
 
> Bill: is it possible to have a wiki page only members of the 
> "foundation" can edit, but anybody can comment on?
> 

I have changed the edit security option of the AxiomFoundation
page so that it requires a login with user id and password before
being allowed to edit. This is a little awkward in that the
user id and password must be set up manually by me. The only
alternative would be to setup the AxiomFoundation page under
the Axiom Portal instead of MathAction. Axiom Portal has a full
user registration procedure and controlled access to specific
web pages.

But unless anyone has an objection, let's try it the manual
way on MathAction for a while. In principle I have no objection
to allowing open access since we can always track any changes
that are made and reverse them if necessary, but perhaps in this
particular case we need to be a little more cautious. In spite
of the edit password, users will still be able to submit
comments on the contents of the AxiomFoundation page.

If you go to the Axiom Foundation page at:

  http://page.axiom-developer.org/zope/mathaction/AxiomFoundation

you will see a section for Foundation Members Only. It contains
a link to the edit page which triggers the login prompt. Or
if you want, just go to the bottom of the page and fill in the
comment form. My plan is to periodically consolidate comments
made to AxiomFoundation into concise summaries of the decisions
of the Foundation members.

So, would the Axiom Foundation members please send me (by private
email) a user id and password that they would like me to setup
for them to use when editing the AxiomFoundation web page?

> 
> PS: It seems that we have already at least 100$ to spend!
>

Do you mean Bob McErath's "pledge" :

> Right now I volunteer $100 of my personal funds for Axiom
> work. (because I'm a single post-doc and don't have a lot
> of expenses ;)  What do people consider to be an important
> goal that is not already being worked on, that we could
> reasonably expect someone to pick up?  This kind of thing
> needs a rigorous definition for completion of the bounty,
> and test-cases accompanying it to ensure correctness.

Last time I looked the total donations received today via
paypal was $170. Together with Bob's contribution that would
already amount to $270 and the door has only been open for
about 8 hours. It's a start.

Paypal generates an email notice for each donation received.
I would be happy to include Foundation Member's email addresses
on the distribution list for these notices if you wish.

One thought I had was that perhaps we should allow another
gentler form of donation - a pledge such as Bob McElrath's
email above. Some users might find this less intrusive because
it doesn't immediately involve any new fangled e-money kind
of transaction. We could allow potential contributors to
submit a promise to make a donation with information on how
to contact them at a later time to collect.

Here is one other point to consider: Do we want to allow
people the option of having there names listed somewhere on
the Axiom website as contributors?

Finally, has anyone considered the amount of time that they
would like to serve as Axiom Foundation Members? I would like
to propose that each member plan on serving for at least one
year with an option to re-volunteer at the end of each year.
But this should be considered a loose commitment, especially
during the formative stage of the Foundation. Ideally, there
would be some kind of rotation among willing Axiom users
and developers with some continuity of membership from year
to year.

Regards,
Bill Page.