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Meeting and other things



Hi.

I have some things to fill you guys in on. Sorry I didn't write earlier,
but the bagruyot are ganging up on me here.

About two weeks ago (can't recall the specific date), Amos Shapira, Ira 
Abramov, Erez Strauss and myself met with three representatives from
a new company called Kinematica. This is not a very complete summary,
so if anyone wants to add - please do.

Present from the company were Meir Miesnik, Aviv Zigel and Rani Pinchuk.
Rani is the person that originally wrote me requesting the meeting.

Kinematica is a very new company. It deals with Internet technology,
and two projects mentioned as examples are Internizing Globes (the newspaper)
and Lamda (www.lamda.org.il). Both Rani Pinchuk and another guy there
are Linux-il members (Sorry, I forgot), and have been using Linux 
successfully as a development environment.

After introductions, the four Linux-il members described their group,
its spirit, and its needs. The points raised were similar to the
ones in the Sela group:

* Public relations
* FTP site
* Web site
* Place to hold meetings
* Support for shows
* Official status (for books, CDs..)

After that the members talked with the Kinematica staff about various
subjects. Various conclusions:

* As Kinematica is a young firm, large amounts of money (as required) cannot
  be donated.

* Kinematica can provide a place for meetings, as long as not too many
  people attend (size of room) and for about 4 times a year.

However, the subject most discussed and apparently the most important
one (with relation to Kinematica) is the idea of going official. The
general message was that we should turn into an Amuta, as this would
provide several benefits:

* People would look at us more seriously.
* We would be able to talk with other companies (bookstores, CDs).
* It would create just a little more order (not too much, I might emphasize).

Numerous other arguments were given, which I do not want to raise, since
I think this is an issue we should all discuss on the list.

On Kinematica's side, the emphasis they had wa in the pool of people and
ideas the group represents. This is contrary to Sela, which explicitly
talked about manpower. Kinematica is less interested in this, and more
in technological ideas and notions that might be developed.

Evgeny, please post this on plasma-gate. Thanks.

Shay Rojansky

--
Shay Rojansky, roji@cs.huji.ac.il                 Finger for PGP public key





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