Proposal for non-profit

[Craig White]

On Fri, 2003-01-17 at 12:53, Craig White wrote:
> It's pretty certain that this is a go.
> 
> I have a proposal - 3 pieces which I would like to share with anyone
> that has an interest in helping me get this through. I plan on sending
> this to the board of directors for their approval on Tuesday.
> 
> The first part is a generalized overview of where I am going (open
> source) and that can be seen at:
> <http://barney.azapple.com/IT_Plan_for_export.doc>
> or for StarOffice/OpenOffice
> <http://barney.azapple.com/IT_Plan_for_export.sxw>
> 
> I tried to send this to the list yesterday but as an attachment (yes, I
> know that was a bad thing but I thought that most of you would be
> interested in at least reading through it).
> 
> I was hesitant about putting up a link on my server but I guess that's
> the way it has to be.
> 
> Anyway...
> 
> Anyone have any recommendations/suggestions that can help improve upon
> this?
> 
> I plan to retain this, continue to embellish and make it available to
> any others who want to make similar proposals to their companies or
> clients...
> 
------
replying to my own post...nobody else is.

I have had 14 downloads of the document and not a single comment. I'm
not gonna even load webalizer at this point but WAY too many of these
have been running windows.

I am totally serious about taking this non-profit completely to open
source - they now have 1 windows computer and about 30 Macintosh
computers and I don't see how they can continue on Mac's and I can't see
starting in with Microsoft Windows at this point.

Here's my analysis as why this moment is a terrific time to make this
changeover to open source...

Hardware is unbelievably cheap right now. I am looking at a Compaq ML
530 P2 for $3250. This has 2-Xeon 2.4G processors, 1 Gb ECC RAM, 16 hot
swap bays and embedded U3 SCSI in a 7U rack form factor. I think it has
an IDE CD (big deal) and no hard drives. Wow that is a lot of iron for
little money.

I plan on getting some help with custom programming (now all their data
resides in Filemaker Pro), and I will be inviting people on this message
boards to do some of the programming to replace this.

There are a lot of people giving lip service to getting government and
businesses on open source stuff, but I have an opportunity to make it
happen soon.

If my proposal sucks, feel free to say so, I'm not looking for
compliments...I want to make a rock solid proposal and plan on offering
it for any one else to incoporate for their use. I'm looking for people
to critique my proposal, make it stronger as I'm getting very little
help from the director & assistant director since they are not all that
computer savvy. They are not Microsoft enthusiasts. The board president
is a Microsoft enthusiast and I want to make sure that the proposal that
I put in front of his is as good as it can possibly be.

The proposal (link listed above) was the general concept. Part 2 was the
initial hardware purchases to create the network infrastructure, and the
first 4 general targets (testing open source accounting software,
defining the server application layer & client interface for the SQL db
to replace Filemaker, data conversion for all their existing data
currently in proprietary format and LTSP testing and if desired,
implementation).

Anyway...I put the first message and my proposal online for PLUG 48
hours ago and not a single comment has been uttered...

Craig