18 Feb
2004
18 Feb
'04
11:24 a.m.
[Sorry for cross-posting - feel free to forward around]
Dear all,
I'm sending this e-mail to all mailing lists/persons I think (often
with a less-than-optimal inductive process) could be interested in the
future of what's currently know as the "AGNULA Newsletter". If you
receive multiple copies of this e-mail or if you are not interested at
all in the subject, please excuse me and drop everything to the
bitbucket.
First, a bit of history. The AGNULA newsletter was born in Nov 2003
(more or less) as a service to our users who could be informed of new
software releases, events, research achievements in the field of music
& sound, with specific preference given to topics related to Libre
Software. You can see some more information here:
http://www.agnula.org/documentation/newsletter/
(you can find the past issues archive at the same URL).
The AGNULA Newsletter was never meant to be AGNULA-centric (although,
as was recently pointed out on our mailing lists, the naming we chose
could suggest that) but rather as a way to spread information about
the above mentioned topics - and of course to talk about AGNULA news,
if relevant.
Over the time we managed to send around 12 weekly issues of the
newsletter to our `newsletter-dist' mailing list subscribers, who
currently amount to 70. Honestly, given the young age of the
newsletter and the amount of manpower we've been able to put into it,
I'm not too dissatisfied with these numbers.
However, as the AGNULA project is reaching the end of its funded
lifetime I think it's high time that we think whether the AGNULA
Newsletter should become something bigger and better organized. What
does this mean?
Basically, I'd like to understand whether the wider GNU/Linux audio
(and video?) community is interested in turning the newsletter into a
"community project". What we would basically need is:
(a) that Libre Software project maintainers add the newsletter contact
address (currently newsletter-collect(a)lists.agnula.org, but this is
not cut in stone) so that when they send announcements about new
releases the newsletter team is notified more quickly;
(b) a (team of) editor(s) for the newsletter. I've been doing that
for the past months, but time pressure is growing and since my
position as AGNULA technical manager will end in April, I forecast I
won't have the same amount of time to dedicate to this project. A
native english speaker would be preferred, of course;
(c) a (team of) news pieces collectors/writers. The AGNULA project
can give (or try to give :) all the necessary instruments needed by
the newsletter team to coordinate their work - that means CVS, bug
tracking system, mailing lists, whatever;
(d) [optional] a (team of) translators to create nationalized versions
of the newsletter. This is of course a long-term goal and can be put
aside for the moment.
So, the question is: do you think this - turning the AGNULA Newsletter
into the "AGNULA Newsletter on Sound & Video" or even the "Newsletter
on Sound & Video", although I'd like the AGNULA name to remain
somewhere in the newsletter, if anything for sentimental reasons :) -
is a good idea?
If any of you think it is, I would encourage all of you to discuss the
topic on:
users(a)lists.agnula.org
http://lists.agnula.org/mailman/listinfo/users
If you are not subscribed to the mailing list, don't worry - I'll
authorize your messages as they arrive. Please put a clear sign that
you want to be put in Cc: for replies.
Thanks for your time and attention,
Andrea Glorioso
AGNULA Technical Manager