[Commotion-discuss] New here & International Development applications

Thu Sep 29 11:38:25 CDT 2011

Hi there,

better late than never!
I also discovered Commotion via Le Monde's article (so this is almost a
french speaker thread! ;), and currently working in the non-profit/human
rights sector, I was obviously thrilled.
I am Technical Project Manager though not a dev myself, and as such tend to
think more of the gap between developers and users/potential stakeholders. I
believe it would be great to get more plain language documentation (as
accessible say, as the so-successful-LeMonde-article) to promote the concept
and the progress of the project to potential community/institutional users.
Because the people who will use it are ultimately not devs, but say
emergency field workers and Human Rights Defenders (HRDs)! This in turn
might totally influence your roadmap (and if you have some vague idea to
service the 'third sector', then better develop something fits their need).

I have seen this wiki entry which is a great start I think
https://tech.chambana.net/projects/commotion/wiki/Newbie_How_it_Works
but as a non-dev there are still a few things I am struggling to understand:

1)  what are the USPs (Unique Selling Points) of this project compared to
other open source wireless mesh networks initiatives already used (like OLPC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO-1#Wireless_mesh_networking. Oh actually
just reading that "Although one goal of the laptop is that all of its
software be open source <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source>, the
source code for this routing protocol is currently closed source" booh!). I
understand one is the integration with TOR, but any others?

2) how is the access to the internet addressed, and bandwidth in particular
(access to a wider network for HRDs for example is strategically crucial).
It would be good to have a non-tech version of why/how 100s can access the
internet through the one point/computer and what kind of speed they can
expect.

3) Commotion routers and their role, and access from say deep Rural Northern
Uganda.

Ok, that's a lot to address, but hopefully there will be a few people out
there who are able to answer! I'd suggest best done via the wiki, and then
send us a link,
thanks!

PS: wasn't chambana down yesterday?

Laurence

On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 6:00 PM, <
commotion-discuss-request at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. Re: New here (Yann Forget)
>   2. Re: New here (L. Aaron Kaplan)
>   3. Introducing myself. (Merouan Mekouar)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2011 00:19:58 +0530
> From: Yann Forget <yannfo at gmail.com>
> To: F L <legendre at tik.ee.ethz.ch>,
>        commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> Subject: Re: [Commotion-discuss] New here
> Message-ID:
>        <CAKcJoPk0eSJwuBCU2N-_cX0fUPBFCMajnrB7YqBP-pC=jxtY5Q at mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> 2011/9/1 F L <legendre at tik.ee.ethz.ch>:
> > Hi Yann,
> > Since you're in India, are you aware of?http://drupal.airjaldi.com/
>
> Yes, I wrote to them.
>
> > Cheers,
> > --
> > Franck
>
> Regards,
>
> Yann
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2011 20:59:31 +0200
> From: "L. Aaron Kaplan" <aaron at lo-res.org>
> To: Yann Forget <yannfo at gmail.com>
> Cc: commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net, F L
>        <legendre at tik.ee.ethz.ch>
> Subject: Re: [Commotion-discuss] New here
> Message-ID: <DF7F2CE4-1C42-4B9D-B062-6AFF77EA2B8D at lo-res.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>
> On Sep 1, 2011, at 8:49 PM, Yann Forget wrote:
>
> > 2011/9/1 F L <legendre at tik.ee.ethz.ch>:
> >> Hi Yann,
> >> Since you're in India, are you aware of http://drupal.airjaldi.com/
> >
> > Yes, I wrote to them.
>
> Hehe, I proposed the same :)
>
>
> a.
>
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2011 12:10:42 -0400
> From: Merouan Mekouar <merouanm at gmail.com>
> To: commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> Subject: [Commotion-discuss] Introducing myself.
> Message-ID:
>        <CAK1MRQf8wwGUwKo1Vm0zvwxfiGPbfG4WVU5FJD7zs6Aon_PUvQ at mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> My name is Merouan, I am a PhD student in Political Science at McGill
> University - Montr?al. I also heard about commotion through the french
> website lemonde.fr and I immediately fell in love with the project!!
>
> I am currently doing my research on the concept of "informational cascades"
> or why random instances of street protest spiral in some cases and not
> others (for instance, I am trying to understand why would the
> self-immolation of a street vendor trigger massive protests in Tunisia and
> not elsewhere in the Arab world). Nothing tech related as you can see but I
> do speak/write Arabic and French fluently and would be very very happy to
> help with translations or anything else if need be.
>
> Again, I would like to congratulate all those working on the project.
> Coming
> from the Arab world, I can only testify on the importance of a free (and
> secure) access to the internet for the defence of individual freedoms.
>
> Cheers!
>
> Merouan
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-- 
Laurence Bascle
Technical Project Manager
mob: +44 7739 189 035
skype: lbascle
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