• PenguinDayNotes

Introduction

PersonalTelco has been asked to do a "speed geeking" session at the 2005 [http://portland.penguinday.org Portland Penguin Day]. I, CalebPhillips, will be representing PersonalTelco at this event. This page is meant to hold some notes about what I will be saying.

General Outline

• Why do you do what you do?
  • Our Mission Statement: "We are here to promote and build public wireless networks through community support and education."
  • Community Involvement
  • We're geeks alright!
  • Empower an alternative model for Community Communication and Data Access
  • Ownership of communication
  • Cool Toys
• What is The Personal Telco Project
  • 501(c)3 Non Profit
  • Oregon Corporation
  • 100% Volunteer
  • Group of interested citizens
  • You and Me and Them too
• How do we work?
  • We work because people make us work
  • Ad-hoc
  • Decentralized
• What are you doing?
  • Mississippi Grant Project
  • Working with local business
  • Providing Documentation
  • PTP University
  • PTPnet
  • Experimenting
• How can I get involved?
  • Monthly Meetings
  • Weekly Meetings
  • Mailing Lists
  • Show up
  • Have an Idea and Do it!
• What's next?
  • Better Volunteer retention
  • Non-Geek Factor
  • More Grants
  • Interconnected Networks
  • Neighborhood Networks
  • New “Nodes”
  • Keep on Keepin' on
  • Who really knows

Penguin Day Focus

Penguin Day is a chance for local Non-Profits to find out about FOSS (and Linux Specifically), and how it can a) improve their business methodology, and b) save them money (the all-important attractor for Non-profits). There are a few points on which PersonalTelco relates to these aims:

• PTP Is a Non-Profit: PersonalTelco is itself, a 501(c)(3) Federal Non-Profit corportation. Our entire network of nodes, servers, and web-services are running on FOSS, and most of the time, Linux. If it were not for FOSS's pricetag, quality, and availability, PersonalTelco could not operate (exist).

• It's all about Community: PersonalTelco's mission statement is to "promote and build public wireless networks through community support and education". This mission is very compatible with the philosophy of FOSS. One of the most incredible things about FOSS is the community effort that surrounds it - this is certainly analogous to PersonalTelco's goals of education and community support. Similarly, the organization of PTP is very adhoc and communal, quite similar to the organization of most FOSS projects.

• Philosophically Similar: The Wireless Commons Manifesto outlines the goals and motivations of PTP and many other projects like it. It states: "The Internet's value increases exponentially with the number of people who are able to participate. In today's world, communication can take place without the use of antiquated telecommunications networks. The organizations that control these networks are limping anachronisms that are constrained by the expense and physical necessity of using wires to build their networks. Because of this, they cannot serve the great mass of people who stand to benefit from a wireless commons. Their interests diverge from ours, and their control over the network strangles our ability to communicate." Similarly, the GNU Manifesto states, " Complete system sources will be available to everyone. As a result, a user who needs changes in the system will always be free to make them himself, or hire any available programmer or company to make them for him. Users will no longer be at the mercy of one programmer or company which owns the sources and is in sole position to make changes." It is easy to see that the two manifestos are not dissimilar, they are both about empowering people and giving them freedom, freedom that will not be provided by software manufacturers and telecommunications companies who are only concerned with their own bottom line.

Result

I boiled all of this down into a speedy presentation.

• [http://www.smallwhitecube.com/foo/PTPSpeedGeek.sxi OO]

• [http://www.smallwhitecube.com/foo/PTPSpeedGeek.sxi.pdf PDF]

Credits

The bulleted (who...what...where...why) outline above was stolen verbatim from ["AaronBaer"]'s excellent outline for [http://www.personaltelco.net/static/publications/WhoIsPersonalTelco.sxi his presentation for CHIFOO]