Debian Pure Blend for CSOs-NGOs, txt draft for mailing list
Charting a new course has never been more urgent for humanity
The following is a proposal advocating for a collaborative activist
effort to create a Debian Pure Blend, specifically for nonprofits,
co-ops, unions, and other activist groups, that are working for a better
world.
I’m hoping there are enough Debian programmers who would like to resume
work on the dormant “debian-nonprofit@lists.debian.org” [operational
2003-2006], proceeding with developing it as a Debian Pure Blend along
cooperative lines such as I have proposed below.
Use of common software programs would facilitate their communication,
cooperation, and co-ordination on a local to global scale, via peer-peer
networks. Uniting these organizations globally will serve the urgent
need to facilitate the holistic integration of the already existing, but
siloed, progressive co-operative: media, educational, economic,
agricultural, social, political, and governmental systems around the
world.(1)
The Secretary General of the United Nations is far from alone in
thinking “Humanity has a choice: co-operate or perish". Because the
stakes are so ominously high,(2) I sincerely hope you, as Debian
programmers, will read this proposal.
1. The whole spectrum of caring activist individuals and organizations
around the world - of all races, cultures, and nationalities; and all
religious, philosophical, sexual, political, and economic orientations -
“could” live harmoniously on the common foundation of basic compassion,
honesty, and intelligence. We could communicate, cooperate, and
coordinate to an unprecedented degree to effectively integrate and unite
our collective efforts to make a better world for all.(3)
2. The traditional dominant political parties in most supposedly
democratic countries are so infiltrated by those who serve that richest
1% of humanity that they have repeatedly demonstrated they will not
serve the interests of the common people.(4) Voting for "the lesser of
evils" or not voting at all does not manifest viable, democratic, and
just political and economic social systems, but does accelerate our
collective race to the grand finale.
3. The need for humanity to cooperate intensifies by the day. The
values and objectives of both the Charter of Global Greens and the Earth
Charter encapsulate the collective basic values and objectives of the
whole spectrum of activist individuals and organizations, and may serve
as a foundation for collaboration.(5) We must go beyond solo efforts
and limited coalitions, and actualize systemic harmonizing and balancing
of our collective views and efforts. We must collectively co-create the
equivalent of a Global Green New Deal,(6) or submit to a fate
precariously determined by the maliciously greedy less-than-1%.
4. Activist organizations could reliably and effectively interweave
their individual mini-systems with the help of a secure local-global
peer-peer communication network of networks running GNU/Linux free
source code software. If the Debian programmers who are willing to help
create this software will collaborate with the IT specialists of
well-respected progressive NGOs, unions, and co-ops - across the
spectrum of concerns (7) - to create a Debian Pure Blend, all
participants will benefit. It could integrate the best of what they have
all individually done with their software to date, and facilitate
subsequent creation of peer-peer nodes (8) by their activist
counterparts in cities, towns, municipalities, or regions around the
world. That in turn would greatly facilitate and harmonize this whole
integrating process itself - for both planning, and follow-through at
all levels. This project could also give NGOs the most opportune
incentive to switch to GNU/Linux - and with the NGO’s IT people
collaborating, it would take some of the burden off Debian programmers
by creating the software “with”, rather than “for” the NGOs.(9)
I’m not a programmer, and hold no influential position or access to
funding, but IF I knew that some Debian programmers wanted to proceed,
and that you wanted any help from me, I’d send a similar draft of this
proposal to leaders/IT experts of some very important organizations in
Canada – and let them know that you are interested, and how to contact
you directly [via this mailing list?]. I think that they, and any of
their counterparts in whatever countries whom they or You want to
contact, could collectively invite an appropriate whole-spectrum range
of co-participants to improve upon this proposal as you see fit – then
see it through together.
Just as I don’t know whether any Debian programmers will be interested,
I also don’t know if any of the organizations I’d invite will be. I’m
hoping the current worsening of so many world situations will have a
bright side, in finally motivating an unprecedented massive collective
activist effort to work together. But, before listing or inviting them,
I’ll leave it to you to let me know if you want my involvement at all.
There are other points that I’d like to make – including some specific
functions I hope the software would facilitate - which I hope will
interest you. Also, there are extensive Endnotes including quotes and
links to videos, that I think carry a lot more weight than what I’ve
written so far. They are available as text files, or formatted
LibreOffice Writer docs - both versions are the complete proposal,
including the above and several additional pages - plus 3 jpg files.They
are uploaded to Dropbox. If you're interested please send me an email.
then I'll send you links to whatever files you request (txt or .odt),
and to the jpgs, which are in a sub-folder.
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