On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 11:36 PM, Kerryn McKay <kerryn@africancommons.org> wrote:

Hi all

Coming into the thread slightly later as I've been offline most of the weekend. This sounds interesting. Jessie, can you give us an indication of why Sangari SA contacted you in particular? Did they have a particular request or proposal that they were putting to you in this regard?

Sure: In short, the contact was initiated by me to get as an attempt to better understand the breadth of our distribution of offline Wikipedia thus far.

I had reached out to a contact at the Shuttleworth Foundation to learn (a) where they had distributed Wikipedia for Schools and (b) how many people have access to the offline resources. Two goals for finding these things out:

Reach/impact estimate: We are trying to add some sort of estimate onto the monthly report card regarding the estimated offline viewership and in order to do this, we need to understand where these offline versions are being accessed. This would be helpful in forming a more robust and accurate picture of the Wikipedia project's reach.
Distribution network: An updated version of Wikipedia for Schools is being developed to come out in about one month, in addition to an updated version of Kiwix (the offline reader). We currently have no "update" network, and it would be great tor revive these ties so that the updated information can be dispersed.

Communication has been quite minimal thus far: Shuttleworth put me in contact with Hilton who now works for Sangari SA. Hilton gave me a brief update on the state of the WPFS distributions as well as receptivity in the education realm. He asked if we had ideas for effective distributions of newer copies, and before I volunteered our network of WIkimedians, I emailed this list serve to make sure it was a potential goal worth pursuing!

I hadn't contacted him with the express intent of expanding the places of distribution, but his response indicating the recent receptivity of the Ministry of Education made me think this is a unique opportunity worth digging into further in South Africa.

I agree with David that even if it's a for-profit this shouldn't make too much of a difference if we find that their mandate and objectives for this particular project are aligned with the Wikimedia ZA chapter's objectives.

Although I don't know much about Sangari SA, Hilton Theunissen is actually on the board of our organisation, The African Commons Project and he has always been a staunch open source guy. But again, it might help to understand what Sangari's proposed involvement would be so that we can see where, how and if the Chapter could fit in with the initiative.

From what I can tell, this project is less associated with Sangari, and much more associated with Hilton individually. We of course should make sure all this is very clear, though, while moving forward.

Also, the Chapter's involvement need not necessarily be on a volunteer basis should we wish to help with training and outreach, as I know that WMF have funds available and we could always put a small proposal together to help with this, should this be our focus.

Yes: if there are costs associated, this is definitely the type of project a grant could help cover.

Regards
Kerryn

* * * *
Kerryn McKay
The African Commons Project

082 334 6165
skype: kerrynmac
twitter: kerrynmckay

On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 10:35 PM, David Richfield <davidrichfield@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Kieran: this is a very interesting perspective on the situation, and one that I wasn't aware of.

I would be perfectly happy to work with a profit-making organisation to help them provide Wikipedia for Schools to a wider audience, as long as their aims are compatible with ours, but I would never knowingly support an organisation that is inimical towards software freedom, so I'll wait to hear a bit more before committing my time to this.

Kind regards,

David

On 13 May 2011 9:44 PM, "Jessie Wild" <jwild@wikimedia.org> wrote:

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