Group: LibrePlanet Ontario/Meeting Notes/2016-07-24
From LibrePlanet
Contents
Sunday, 24 July 2016, 9:00pm EDT
Location: Mumble
Agenda
- Free/Libre Canadian Tax Preparation Software Project
- Consolidation of domain names: http://libreplanet.ca http://libreplaneton.ca http://libreplanetontario.ca
- Start planning an event for Software Freedom Day, 17 September 2016
Minutes
- Participants: Greg Knittl, Bob Jonkman, Sergio Durigan Junior, Stephen Paul Weber, Blaise Alleyne, Daniel Villarreal.
- Audio recording: http://podcasts.libreplanet.ca/libreplanetontario-2016-07-24.ogg (73 MBytes, 1h30m)
Domain names
- Bob Jonkman and Sergio Durigan Jr. have arranged domain name redirection:
- podcasts.libreplanet.ca is now a CNAME for libreplanet.sobac.com
- http://libreplaneton.ca/ now redirects to https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:LibrePlanet_Ontario
Software Freedom Day 2016
(Saturday, 17 September 2016)
- Venue?
- Raul Suarez may have a venue in Kitchener-Waterloo
- Stephen Paul Weber can arrange Kwartzlab as a venue
- Some concern about target audience:
- Outreach for entry level presentations?
- Technical presentations for hard-core GNU/Linux users?
- Demonstrations fall in between, appeal to neither
- Everyone has seen "What is Free Software" presentation, but needed for new people
- Outreach needed for people who have no understanding of Free Software and Free Culture at all
- People don't know that Freedom exists
- This is our target audience!
- People don't know that software can be made to do what they want, it's not like a microwave
- Software comparisons may not be an effective way to promote Free Software
- How to talk philosophy? More important, how to attract new people?
- Our theme will be "How to convince people that Free Software exists, is legal, and is available to ordinary people"
- To attract new people we can work on the streets, attracting passersby
- Go to where people are, don't expect them to come to us
- People who come to rooms are already the converted
- Stephen Paul Weber does "Libre Streets" for Free Culture
- Blaise Alleyne does campus outreach
- Can have a room event as a follow up after street outreach
- Answer questions like "How do you make money?", "Is it legal?"
- University campus is more welcoming than a street corner for street activism
- Follow-up venue can be at a nearby coffee shop
- Need some brochures to remind street teamers of core points, also a take-along item for people
- Three prong event:
- Prep the street team with talking points, &c.
- Go on the street to communicate the message of Software Freedom, and invite people to:
- Follow up event with a presentation, Q&A
- Request an e-mail address for follow-up
- E-mail is good for in-depth follow-up, people don't give up their e-mail address easily
- Discussion mailing list, not a newsletter or announcement list
- If there are few signups (10) then a personal follow may be better than a list
- Needs followup, perhaps a Mumble meeting just for SFD
Tax software
- Gregg Knittl has followed up with CRA
- still asking questions
- trying to find out what information CRA has for developers
- Need: Defining and capturing tax calculation
- Crowdsource them? Too much for Gregg Knittl to do himself
- Gregg Knittl thinks CRA will not provide the tax calculations, will only verify a developed program
- Forms like T1 are available, we may need to extract calculations from these
- Wiki page has been updated: https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:LibrePlanet_Ontario/FLCTPSP
- Gregg Knittl is waiting to receive test cases from CRA
- If tax software cannot be made with source code available then we may need to switch to political lobbying rather than writing softare
- Bob Jonkman's accountant was not interested in getting Free Software tax software, already uses proprietary software
Other stuff
- Stephen Paul Weber's book has been featured on https://unglue.it/
More SFD
- Gregg Knittl suggests People might be interested in Privacy, Encryption
- Other tools, eg. Raw Therapee
- Bob Jonkman has done several presentations on security, privacy and encryption (at last year's SFD)
- Blaise Alleyne suggests using the Wiki and mailing list to organize SFD, no Mumble meeting
- Bob Jonkman and Daniel Villarreal discuss strategies for attracting people to SFD
Text channel
[8:50 PM] Welcome to Mumble. [8:50 PM] Connecting to server libreplanetbr.org. [8:50 PM] Connected. [8:50 PM] Welcome message: Welcome to this server running Murmur. Enjoy your stay! [9:23 PM] Daniel: hi [9:23 PM] Daniel: yes [9:24 PM] Daniel: Daniel Villarreal here. [9:24 PM] Daniel: howdy howdy [9:38 PM] Daniel: event + message + enthusiasm = ? [9:38 PM] sergiodj: guys, I guess I'll have to step out unfortunately. sorry about that. [9:38 PM] Daniel: bye [9:39 PM] balleyne: later [9:39 PM] sergiodj: bob, just to make sure, what is the domain that the cname should be pointing to? [9:39 PM] BobJonkman: Thanx Sergio! TTYL [9:39 PM] BobJonkman: libreplanet.sobac.com [9:39 PM] sergiodj: thanks [9:39 PM] sergiodj: alright, ttyl! [9:39 PM] BobJonkman: so podcasts.libreplanet.ca => libreplanet.sobac.com [9:50 PM] Daniel: maybe IRC chat? [9:53 PM] Daniel: I wouldn't bother asking for email addresses. [9:53 PM] Daniel: You're asking for commitment. [9:56 PM] singpolyma: give people the opportunity that fits them specifically best [9:57 PM] Daniel: Nope. [9:59 PM] Daniel: Were the tax people forthcoming and easy to communicate with ? [9:59 PM] Daniel: lol [10:00 PM] Daniel: maybe you can ask them for a flowchart? [10:01 PM] Daniel: Can't hurt to ask? [10:01 PM] Daniel: ok [10:01 PM] Daniel: definitely [10:02 PM] Daniel: I think there's a lot of interest, but it's a daunting task. [10:02 PM] BobJonkman: https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:LibrePlanet_Ontario/FLCTPSP [10:02 PM] Daniel: Thanks for your efforts [10:13 PM] singpolyma: https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:LibrePlanet_Ontario/Software_Freedom_Day_2016 [10:17 PM] singpolyma: I expect most software gets >60% rewritten every year [10:17 PM] singpolyma: s/software/tax software [10:18 PM] BobJonkman: https://quitter.no/notice/1974053 [10:20 PM] Daniel: thanks all. [10:20 PM] singpolyma: Fun fact unrelated to the discussion: my children's book got randomly featured on https://unglue.it/ ! [10:24 PM] balleyne: we're pushing 10:30, I've gotta run very soon! [10:26 PM] singpolyma: I like async for sure. so long as we actually do it ;) [10:26 PM] singpolyma: sync forces us to act [10:26 PM] singpolyma: For sure [10:26 PM] singpolyma: agreed [10:27 PM] Daniel: thanks. good night [10:27 PM] Daniel: uh huh.