[IndiChix] An Open request to LinuxChix-India

Mon Jan 5 05:37:21 UTC 2009

On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 10:52 AM, Gayathri Swaminathan
<gayathri.swa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 10:46 PM, Sriram Narayanan <sriramnrn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hello Gayatri:
>>
>> Summary: We should have a clear, separate, and explicit mail to Swati
>> Sani requesting her to transfer domain name ownership to active list
>> members.
>> This is a different matter from the (overall good and necessary)
>> points about forming administrative and technical groups.
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 7:33 AM, Gayathri Swaminathan
>> <gayathri.swa at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Hi:
>> >
>> > In light of recent events and discussions it seems appropriate to form
>> > two
>> > groups to guide us for furthering our goals and activities throughout
>> > this
>> > year.
>> >
>>
>> From what I've seen, we've been having two discussions:
>> 1. Domain name ownership should be vested with the active list members.
>> This has been largely proposed by Vid, and has been given explicit and
>> implicit acknowledgement and support on the list by Hassath, Kingsly
>> and myself so far. If have missed out on any names, I welcome
>> additional names being mentioned here in this particular context.
>>
>> 2. The need for advisory groups and events
>> The impression that I have is that you have proposed this, and I have
>> seen at least one other list member talk about this as well. I give my
>> own +1 to your previous draft where you had mentioned the existence of
>> two small groups. I have also responded to that other list member on
>> the list itself, and have voiced my opinion stating that we should all
>> feel free to propose and start off new activities.
>>
>> It is indeed important to have advisory groups who can be looked upon
>> for overall direction. However, forming such groups is separate from
>> seeking domain name ownership. I feel that we should keep these two
>> issues separate.
>>
>> > * LinuxChix-India Advisory group
>> >    - Members will be women founded and spent many initial efforts for
>> > this
>> > community.
>> >    - They will be the administrative contact for our domain
>> > linuxchix.org.in
>> <snip/>
>> >
>> > * LinuxChix-India Administrative group
>> >   - Members of this group will be the various administrators and
>> > technical
>> > contacts
>> >   - They may opt in to be the technical contact for our domain
>> > linuxchix.org.in
>> <snip/>
>>
>> The previous point implies that members of the advisory group will be
>> the administrative contacts. I would like to go a level further, and
>> state that they should have complete ownership of the domain. This is
>> in the interests of continuity.
>>
>> Also, if the person owning the domain does not wish to hand over
>> ownership to active members today, it does leave the stability of the
>> domain name in doubt. This is because the owner is fully within her
>> rights to want to point the domain name to another IP address. Such a
>> move cannot be questioned and is perfectly proper. However, it would
>> leave our community without a domain, and we'd have to then scramble
>> about to get a new domain. While such a new domain can no doubt be
>> procured within a day, it's also ideal that we resolve the domain name
>> ownership issue once and for all.
>>
>> This may be an issue for a select few and not for others, but as long
>> as the select few are acting in the interests of the overall
>> community, I feel that we should let this select small group go ahead
>> with its pursuit.
>>
>> As a sysadmin myself, I add my +1 to the need for an Administrative
>> Group. Sysadmins are necessary for the functioning of an online
>> community and they have a role to play. However, my +1 is for an a
>> mail/proposal specific to the list, and not for a mail going to Swati
>> Sani.
>>
>> > Apart from these two groups that will serve "advisory" and
>> > "administrative"
>> > roles within our community our large "volunteer" group will continue to
>> > exist. Volunteers may choose to:
>> >
>> > - Volunteer for LinuxChix-India
>> > (http://linuxchix.org.in/wiki/index.php/Volunteer_for_LinuxChix-India)
>> > or,
>> > - Volunteer for several interest groups
>> > (http://linuxchix.org.in/wiki/index.php/Main_Page#Volunteering)
>> >
>> > It is important to cite that linuxchix.org heavily recommends that
>> > chapters
>> > use a subdomain of linuxchix.org, in our case it would be
>> > http://india.linuxchix.org.
>> >
>>
>> I'm new to this community and did not know that linuxchix.org
>> recommends that chapters use a subdomain. I looked up at the website,
>> and found nothing here:
>> http://www.linuxchix.org/founding-local-linuxchix-chapter.html
>>
>> So having a link to the above statement would be good to have.
>>
>> However, even if there is no link to such a recommendation, it does
>> seem a very sensible thing.
>>
>> > This means while our sites are hosted per our convenience we will
>> > maintain
>> > affiliation with our parent organization and the central LinuxChix group
>> > can
>> > help us support us if necessary. All requests made to
>> > http://india.linuxchix.org will get redirected to
>> > http://linuxchix.org.in
>> >
>>
>> If we do go ahead and have india.linuxchix.org (which seems a good
>> idea from the way you have presented it here), I would say that
>> linuxchix.org.in issue redirects to india.linuxchix.org. This would
>> help us stay compliant with the upstream recommendation that you have
>> mentioned (and to which we should ideally have a link to as well).
>>
>> > After being here slightly over a year and observing activities of this
>> > community, it appears the following members actively engage in several
>> > LinuxChix-India's activities:
>> >
>> > - Aneesha
>> > - Ankita
>> > - Archana
>> > - Barkha
>> > - Hassath
>> > - Runa
>> > - Swati
>>
>> No offense to Swat Sani, but I have seen at plain statements from at
>> Vid at a number of levels that Swati has moved away from the Indian
>> community. In fact, the entire discussion over the past few days has
>> been on asking Swati Sani to the domain name to the active list
>> members.
>>
>> I have also not seen any responses from her to this list at all
>> despite explicit questions asking whether we know of other contact
>> information for her. It is evident that she does not wish to be
>> contacted.
>>
>> Dragging her back into our activities would then be a violation of her
>> privacy, and I think we should abstain from that.
>>
>> Once we have a draft ready and approved by active list members, that
>> would be a  more appropriate time to approach her, I feel.
>>
>> > - Vidya
>> >
>>
>> My vote would be for Hassath to send a mail, but that mail would be
>> very clearly and explicity about the transfer of domain name control.
>>
>> > If it seems agreeable to these individuals, after having their
>> > individual
>> > consent think we should elect each member either as an advisor (or)
>> > administrator.
>> >
>> > I sincerely hope our involved leaders guide us through this procedure so
>> > we
>> > can further our community's goals and activities.
>> >
>> > If you are a member of this list and this request seems agreeable ,
>> > please
>> > sign your name to this email.
>> >
>>
>> As a list member, I'm -1 to this particular mail being a formal mail
>> to Swati Sani for the following reasons:
>> 1. This mail incorporates two different elements as pointed out by me
>> above.
>>
>> 2. It's better to draft a clear and explicit mail stating the one
>> issue that we wish to interact on with Swat Sani, have that on the
>> list for approval, and to then send it to Swati Sani. All other
>> issues, while important, ought to be taken up on a separate thread.
>>
>> It is good that you have located a different email address that
>> swatisani may be using - hopefully she reads the mails there and
>> responds to the various mail exchanges that have occured on this list
>> during the pazts few days.
>>
>> > Thanks,
>> > --
>> > Gayathri
>> >
>> >
>> > List of individuals attesting this email request:
>> > ------------------------------------------
>> > Gayathri Swaminathan
>> >
>>
>> I'm not adding my name to this particular mail given my -1 and the
>> reasons given above.
>>
>> -- Sriram
>
>
> Here is the page from linuxchix.org that suggests about the subdomain -
> http://www.linuxchix.org/letting-us-know.html
>
> It is stated optional in this page however have seen chapters to do the
> following under normal circumstances:
>
> a) Form the chapter, post announcement to announce at linuxchix.org
> b) Identify the advisory/ technical leads for chapter to conduct various
> activities
> c) Pass live feeds from chapter to http://www.linuxchix.org/live
>

Thanks for the pointer. Even though this seems optional, I think it's
a good thing to have in place.

> I think forming this advisory / administrative group and identifying members
> is primary task at hand. After which the domain ownership/contacts can be
> narrowed further. In any case Swati Sani is the current domain owner. Formal
> procedures must be followed as in purchase of domain. We can't simply
> request Swati to hand it off to this group.
>

I see a difference of opinion here. I myself feel that forming groups
is a good thing. I have far felt and will continue to feel that the
forming of groups is distinct from the issue of domain ownership.

Given the various points raised about her so far, and in the interests
of having a valid domain for the group, I feel we actually can
politely ask her if she's OK with handing over domain name ownership
to active list members, and of course state there that list members
would be OK with reimbursing her for the costs. Speaking for myself, I
may have not mentioned costs so far, but I am aware that it would have
cost her money, and that we should be reimbursing her for these costs.

Simply being a domain name owner is not the same as being an active list member.

> Also note the central LinuxChix group is happy to forward requests to
> subdomain http://<chaptername>.linuxchix.org, which means finding hosting/
> supporting chapter's infrastructure is the chapter's responsibility. Seems
> fair and well structured to me.
>

I do not know the specifics of which server is actually hosting this
instance. Issuing a redirect, which is what I've mentioned, is
fortunately easy enough with Apache. We can have the same Apache
instance respond to both the domain names using Virtual Hosting, and
need only mention a redirect in the linuxchix.org.in VirtualHost
redirecting to the india.linuxchix.org domain (hosted on the same
machine and perhaps in the same config file).

Hence, all the existing infrastructure can indeed remain in place.

Seems fair and structured to me too, which is why I've mentioned
anything about it at all so far.

> I did not start this separate thread with intent on forking conversations.
> Wanted to see if we all collectively agree on forming the "advisory" and
> "administrative" groups prior to making further decisions to our
> infrastructure. Think identifying these groups/ narrowing down roles will
> help us to conduct discussions in a structured manner.
>

I'm glad that discussions are taking place.

Let me clarify that when I mentioned the word "fork" on this thread,
I'd done so on a response to my own response where I'd also stated
that I'm overquoting. I have not alleged anything at you at all, and
am overall fine with the discussion so far.

Just to let you know, I find the discussion here formal enough, and
only request that if you feel I am levelling any allegations at you,
then please state as much on the mail and I'll gladly clarify. We have
both not interacted much before, and I'm aware that it'll be some time
before we start to understand each other better.

> --
> Gayathri Swaminathan
> gpgkey: 3EFB3D39
> Volunteer, FDP
>
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>
>

-- Sriram