[K12OSN] K12Linux EL6 Fund Drive

[Warren Togami Jr.]

K12Linux EL6 is a Go!
=====================
After further feasibility testing, I now believe that this is a feasible 
project.  Unfortunately, the amount of work is a lot more than I 
originally expected.  So here is the new deal.

https://fedorahosted.org/k12linux/wiki/2011FundDrive
Details of the Fund Drive are here.

https://fedorahosted.org/k12linux/wiki/EL6Status
Status of K12Linux EL6 development is here.  Already a long list of 
stuff to fix... but past experience suggests that fixing one thing will 
only allow me to discover more broken pieces.

The new fundraising targets may seem lofty, but I believe it is 
achievable because I heard back from more companies than expected, and 
there is a strong possibility of larger corporate sponsors coming in to 
make matching challenge grants.  For example, <company> is willing to 
donate $500 if five new members give $100.

https://fedorahosted.org/k12linux/wiki/2011FundDrive#RecognitionofSponsors
As noted here, Corporate Sponsors have a BIG incentive to give due to 
the huge potential for brand exposure.  This is a very low price for 
this kind of PR!

If funds raised exceed these targets, then that may fund my ability to 
begin work on the far more difficult Phase 4 of the project.

Contact Me Directly
===================
If you are ready to send money, please contact me directly so we can 
figure out the details to minimize transaction costs and maximize the 
tax benefits to you.

Fund Drive Totals
=================
https://fedorahosted.org/k12linux/wiki/2011FundDrive
The top of this page will say the current pledged and received totals. 
I think I screwed up my math earlier as I was confused by mail being 
sent to this list, directly to my mail, or to both.

Far Future of K12Linux.org
==========================
After K12Linux EL6 is mature, I want to work on the Next Generation 
replacement for LTSP.  It is absolutely clear that EL6 will be the final 
supportable release of RH-based LTSP.  If we are to have any Open Source 
terminal server solution later, it is going to based on some sort of VDI.

I envision K12Linux.org will raise smaller amounts of money in future 
years to support the legacy EL6 distribution.  Then using that community 
momentum, we will separately fund development of a modern VDI-based next 
generation replacement for the insecure and inefficient LTSP approach. 
The Open Source pieces to build this already exist in libvirt, 
virt-manager, kvm, and SPICE.  It just would take a lot of work to 
integrate those pieces in a coherent way, wrap it in a new K12Linux 
branded management solution, and make it easy to deploy.

Warren Togami
warren at togami.com