ANN: Welcome To Zynot

Hi all,

First, let me just say "Wow!".  There sure seem to be a lot of you that
are just as excited and enthusiastic about this new path as I am.  If
the emails, irc chats, and phone calls I have had this week are any
indication, I see very exciting things happening for this project in our
future. "Thank you all" can't begin to cover it, and a group hug is
just... well, impractical.

I apologize profusely for not having the time to reply to every single
post in both the mailing lists and the forums, and sometimes even direct
mail may slip through the cracks -- send again if I haven't replied by
Sunday.  I will try to catch up this weekend, but please send your
communication through a public channel if at all possible.

= Verbosity Alert =

Now, to return the favor: I've never been accused of being short on
either ideas or the words to express them.  This is one place I can and
will be fairly direct and blunt: get used to it. :)  That said, please
read all of my messages before responding, even if it's painful.  If I
send a series of them, read them all. Even the postscripts. Yes, all of
those as well. No, I'm not kidding. :D

Conversely, I hope every developer will grant this same courtesy upon
all others, and I will personally strive to read every forum post,
mailing list post, and other form of communication until it's not
reasonable for me to do so.  This communication should not be an
overload if we can establish proper project management tools, like those
proposed on the ZynotZyrvices wiki page:

http://wiki.zynot.org/moin.cgi/ZynotZyrvices

I can write and write and write... and eventually all of these
apparantly random thoughts will all suddenly tie together.  If people
don't want to read the trilogy (released in five parts), we need some
folks to step up and summarize for me, ASAP.  I will post a summary of
"Zynot Documentation Project Vision" soon, but I ask you read on and try
to enjoy my natural writing style for now.  Hold on tight and enjoy the
ride, look out for incomplete thoughts, sentences, or

= Road Map and Sneak Peeks =

I will be posting more detailed, introductory road-maps within the next
day or two, and these should cover the entire range of things that need
to be accomplished.  In the process, I will also touch on numerous
aspects of my philosophies about open source software and its role in
the great cosmos and the universe; my opinions or mere wording
are sure to anger some yet excite others.  This is natural.

== Project Scope ==

While it has been a challenge just to keep up with reading the inflow of
mails, posts, and irc chat, I assure you that it's all being assimilated
into my gray matter (okay, I sometimes take notes too). Everyone's input
will be considered and acted upon when the appropriate time comes.

All suggestions are still being "equally" considered, but we will
quickly need to make some decisions about the scope of this new
distribution.  I have a follow-up on the implications of my use of
"equally" already prepared, so please wait to respond to that important
point if you please.

A ZynotMission document needs to be created on the wiki and populated
with a high level view of this projects goals.  Have at it Docteam - oh,
wait, we don't really know who you are yet... more patience.

http://wiki.zynot.org/moin.cgi/ZynotMission    <- to be created!!

= Process Management =

To briefly address the above issue, look for "Zynot Management Process
Vision" (or similarly titled) document to float through here soon;
however, this will just be a tease for the complete paper I am still
writing - this is something that needs to be presented in its entirety
to be understood.

Perhaps some of you might know that management of a modern operating
distribution is not a trivial task (particularly when absolute release
dates are eventually going to be a reality), and not something that can
be bootstrapped into place inside of a week.  I am drawing from some of
the most modern management processes being used in industry today, and I
think everyone will be excited.  Now, to build it up even more...

We want quality? We want stability? We want a process that gives us all
that and the very latest packages?  And deliver it on schedule?  "They"
say it can't be done, but I think it can. Yes, we're still talking open
source development here too; fear not the most draconian summary until
you see the details, which I can only deliver with more time - and
likely imperfectly at first.

I feel that I will be stepping a ways out on a limb with this move, but
I've heard such impressive stories about how solid this tree is - I'm
ready and posed to do a back-flip based on the merit of these ideas.
Please catch me if I slip and start to fall, don't just watch me go
splat without warning me of the impending impact.  Please.

As for any "secretive" spin angle, the process I am undertaking is
similar (in my mind) to the way a project team wanders off to write up a
proposal for the group.  So, other proposals may be floated, and I will
be happy to discuss and even reconsider my ideas... but wait and see
whether or not we can 'tweak' this new (still opaque) management model.

I hope to have a preview of the paper available as soon as possible.

== Law Sneak Peak ==

Now, what defines membership?  That's a question to be asked on
zynot-law.  We have created the zynot-law mailing list to ensure the
community has access to all legal counsel (that can be publicly
disclosed) between the board (presently, just myself) and the
foundation's current counsel, Bradley Schrock of DuBoff Law Group, LLC
in Portland, Oregon.

Brad is generously donating his time to the foundation, and I think we
all give him a round of applause for his willingness to work with the
community in this open fashion.  Let us use this valuable resource
wisely, lest we squander it.

I will be sending a flurry of emails describing my overview of the
issues that need to be addressed, from copyrights to licensing, and to
do so in a transparent and non-secretive fashion.  I have made it clear
to Brad how important communicating through the mailing lists will be,
given the nature of the community we are serving.  Subscribe today and
stay tuned for details....

= Choice Choices =

It's an incredible journey we have just started on; one that will take
some time to fully organize and launch.  I have been trying to stay
active in IRC, though my time there will necessarily be limited for a
while.  Patience is your best bet.  Besides, this is open source, right?
Ya'll don't want someone approving every little decision, do you?  :)

There will be structure forming soon around those goals that the
community can agree to muster the resources to support.  Work it all out
folks; bring me all the sub-projects' "big pictures," and I will try to
help the community work out how all these projects are going to play
together nicely while still delivering the overall product in a
reasonable amount of time.

= Zynot at LinuxWorld Expo =

Our first community "deadline" is LinuxWorld Expo, in San Francisco,
from August 5-7 2003, so everyone start bracing themselves for a fast
release cycle.  Or start planning your trips and making reservations
near the convention center. The Zynot Foundation will occupy booth #5 of
the .org pavillion, and I look forward to meeting everyone there.

Note: that deadline is meaningless with regard to the larger project
goals, consider this only in terms of "what will we have at the show."
That is not the release date that I know everyone is interested in
hearing, sorry.  The community must organize and provide a release date,
based on a plan that shows it can be done in time.

= Zynot(,) Serve The Community? =

I will also be working hard on drafting proposing my visions for what
the non-profit can do to serve this new community as well as how it can
protect the investments that everybody is about to make in this new
distribution.  Balanced against this last point, I must provide clear
reasons why everyone (e.g. my free software user- and developer-selves)
should feel safe as businesses start to try make a living off of it
(e.g. my free software business-self).

I have pages of notes from a serendipitous conversation with an
individual responsible for helping the University of Oregon's Art Museum
raise over $10 million last year alone.  In the two hour flight from
Denver to Eugene, I accumlated a wealth of information for funding
opportunities through fund-raising, membership drives, gift programs,
donations, and grants.

I intend to fully cover each of these each in full and
glorious detail, but everyone should be forming their own ideas and
summaries to add to the mix.  These can provide ample means of
supporting the project's development needs, if managed carefuly and
properly by the right people.

While I am itching to apply these ideas for our communal benefit, this
will not be something the Foundation will pursue until after a board of
directors has been appointed.  I do not feel it would be right for me to
accept money from the community until I can account clearly and openly
that it is going to the right places.  So, thank you all for your offers
to date, and *please* contact us again at that time

== Accountable To The Larger Community ==

For the future, I want The Zynot Foundation to someday be able to
provide the means to do great things for the global community, not just
its own.  For example, we will be likely use strong encryption in our
technology, such as using tricks with GPG to thoroughly validate the
work product through the entire development process (how exactly remains
to be determined).

<TODO>get these plans coordinated and documented; this goes from email
signing to ebuild signing</TODO>

Instead of denying the majority of our users who are free to use such
technology from its benefits, I would prefer to see the foundation join
the crusade to change the laws in those countries whose citizens are not
at liberty to use such fundamental technology solutions.

The global community should begin to get its share just as soon as we
have more funds than our own community can reasonably consume without
being accused of hoarding.  There are great things we can accomplish by
joining forces and working together, of only we set our sights higher
than we can hope to achieve and then "settling" for what we can
accomplish.  This just might apply beyond just our little microcosm.

Of course, these are fairly far reaching goals (and something that would
be determined by the board as appropriate at that time), but I hope it
begins to demonstrate that I am trying to remain an idealist at heart.
I want this organization to help do its part to make things happen for
the community that nourishes it.

= The Idealist vs. The Pragmatic =

There is a larger point to be made there, which again I must descend
into methaphor to make: I am not interested in people that went/go into
their college exams thinking "I hope I get a 'C'".  No, way - that's a
sure fire recipe for getting a 'C'.  Instead, why didn't those people
strive and pour out their souls into trying to get an 'A' and then be
glad we didn't do worse than a 'C'?  You see my concern here?

There is nothing wrong with idealism; we simply must sate that
green-eyed monster's appetite with healty and regular doses of pragmatic
realism.  We must deliver on time for our users; we must set goals that
our development teams can reasonably accomplish - and those of use doing
this for business must be able to afford to eat without ruining for the
other two "classes" of citizen.  The conflict between those goals and
the pure ideals of free software will always need to be carefully
balanced, lest one side flourish at the other's expense.

= Grand Unified Vision =

With everyone's help, I will try to present a Grand Unified Vision for
our new distribution that I hope succeeds in fulfilling most of the
hopes and expectations in most of your hearts.  I am not here to please
everyone, but I am here trying hard to help everyone find a way to
please themselves with their own little piece of the Zynot pie.

= Hurray, He's Done! =

I'm sorry if this was not sufficiently technical for you, but this path
we're on is more about technology: it's about politics, culture,
business, law, and more other facets than I care to delineate in one
place.  I hope that this has at least been an interesting and
entertaining read, and I promise to 'go geek' on ya'll soon enough.

Communication is the key, and I hope everyone will continue to open
their door to me for a little while longer.  Please give me a little
more time to respond before slamming it shut on my foot. :)

Stay tuned,

Zach Welch
Who *Is* This Guy?

== Oh, No! There's More! ==

P.S. Electronic communication is a continuing struggle for me; I believe
the fundamental breakdown that caused this fork ultimately stems from
that struggle.  Even when two fluent speakers converse in person, the
english language itself proves to be an incredibly imperfect carrier for
thought, and trying to boil those same "difficult to communicate even in
person" thoughts down into mere glyphs that pass through a wire reduces
the "intellectual bandwidth" down to practically nothing.

Add emotion, uncertainty, and money (on both sides of the equation) and
you have a very volatile and unpredictable mix.  I try to use verbosity
to combat that fundamental problem, and this solution has been met with
decidedly mixed results in the past.  I leave it in the hands of the
community to teach me to communicate with greater brevity, patience,
compassion, <insert desired trait here>....

P.P.S.  I have been approached by someone interested in helping put
together an H.323 (voice over IP) solution for the project, as hinted at
on the ZynotZyrvices wiki pages.  In light of my feelings expressed in
my last postscript, all I can say is "Yes, yes, yes!"  If you think I
can write a lot, wait'll you hear me turn on my verbal firehose; I'm
know at least a few others are the same way.

Internet conferencing for project members would be a tremendous asset to
the community, and one I strongly endorse. I will gladly re-purpose some
of my "Gentoo hardware" for this task, once it finally begins to be
returned.  I have ebuilds for the entire openh323 suite (somewhere) that
built even on ARM, though we never did quite finish working out why we
couldn't hear each other....

P.P.P.S.... okay okay... I'll start a new message already....  be
patient with me, it will take me time to get myself adjusted to the full
scope of what needs to be done...  more to come very soon, there
are so many questions I want to answer for you all...

Thank you all again and... oh, what the heck.... *group hug*