ZDNet reports that AMD and other chip-makers are announcing plans of new products this week. AMD will announce new versions of its Hammer series for servers.

“Many museums and other non-profits have various categories of
members
and friends who support the activities of the organization by
paying an
annual membership fee. In return, they typically get one or more
gifts
and/or public acknowledgement of their gift.

The GNOME Foundation is considering the creation of a donor
program
which will be similar to those for other non-profit organizations.
This
will allow more individuals to contribute to the project by
creating a
way in which individuals could donate money and be acknowledged.”

Subject:
“Friends of GNOME”
Date:
15 Oct 2001 10:27:24 -0400
From:
Tim Ney
To:
foundation-list@gnome.org

Many museums and other non-profits have various categories of
members
and friends who support the activities of the organization by
paying an
annual membership fee. In return, they typically get one or more
gifts
and/or public acknowledgement of their gift.

The GNOME Foundation is considering the creation of a donor
program
which will be similar to those for other non-profit organizations.
This
will allow more individuals to contribute to the project by
creating a
way in which individuals could donate money and be acknowledged.

This “Friends of GNOME” category would not impact the voting
rights of
the current membership, rather it would be an additional way for
individuals to show their support for GNOME. People could join by
filling out an envelope at shows and conferences or, printing and
returning a form from the website, or by signing up on-line.

We have put together some ideas for how we may structure this
“Friends
of GNOME” Program, but we are interested to hear feedback and
suggestions from the community. Here are our ideas so far:

1) We will call the program “Friends of GNOME” and
contributors will be called “Individual Donors”.

2) We will include the existence of this program in the GNOME
Foundation’s by-laws.

3) There will be six levels of contributors. Their titles and
associated donation levels are:
* Friend: up to $24.99
* Benefactor: $25.00 – $49.99
* Associate: $50.00 – $249.99
* Sponsor: $250.00 – $999.99
* Booster: $1000.00 -$4999.99
* Partner: $5000.00 or more

4) To recognize the generosity of the gift, contributors will
receive:

* Friend:
* Receive recognition of their contribution on the GNOME
Foundation web page, indicating their contribution
level.
* Benefactor:
* Benefits of “Friend”
* Receive a GNOME mouse pad
* Associate:
* Benefits of “Benefactor”
* Receive a GNOME coffee mug
* Sponsor:
* Benefits of “Associate”
* Receive a GNOME t-shirt
* Booster:
* Benefits of “Sponsor”
* Receive a GNOME polo shirt
* Partner:
* Benefits of “Booster”
* Receive framed print of GNOME foot

5) The donor status will be treated as a one-year subscription.
After
one year, donors will be asked to renew.

6) We will allow individuals to make donations at shows and
conferences,
and also provide either an electronic or paper form on the web.

All constructive feedback and suggestions are welcome.

GNOME Foundation Fundraising Committee
Tim Ney
Miguel de Icaza
Dan Mueth

—

_______________________________________________
foundation-list mailing list
foundation-list@gnome.org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list

LinuxPlanet: ”
Just over ten months after the release of its first shrink-wrapped distribution, Progeny Linux Systems has announced that it is getting
out of the shrink-wrap product business and concentrating its efforts on its consulting operations, where the company has already
reported profits.

As a result, the company will not release a second edition of its popular Debian GNU/Linux-based distribution and plans to offer a
migration guide to help users re-merge their Progeny installations with Debian’s current ‘testing’ release, Woody. “

From a press release posted at Trolltech: “Trolltech is releasing the newest version of Qt, version 3.0, the
multi-platform C++ Graphical User Interface Development framework. Qt provides users a software
development environment they can use to create a single source tree that runs natively on
Windows, Linux, Unix, Embedded Linux, and, for the first time, Mac OS X.”

From Computerworld New Zealand: “Kachingo, a customer rewards programme launched last week, runs on the Linux operating system
because, creator Chris Berryman says, “you can imagine what the cost would have been for Microsoft
licences”.

The project, four years in the making, involves 500 individual retail premises and 1700 point of sale
terminals.”

EE Times: “Chip designer Via Technologies Inc. is moving into motherboard production
to boost sales of its flagship product, the P4x266, a Pentium 4 compatible chip set. The
decision, announced Monday, Oct. 15, surprised many familiar with the company, who
generally viewed it as a desperate gamble in the company’s showdown with Intel Corp. over
licensing fees for the chip set.”

ZDNet: “Though cloaked as a
technology battle–Liberty’s
open system vs. Microsoft’s
closed system–what’s really
on display is something else
altogether: It’s the abject fear
of Microsoft hegemony in
spheres well beyond the
realm of technology.

Let me explain.

If Microsoft gains access to
the customer lists of its
Passport “partners,” what’s to
stop it from leveraging those
relationships for its own
purposes?”

Information Week: ”

Many companies have reassessed their technology initiatives in the month
since the tragic attacks on the United States. Some are focusing on security
measures for IT systems while others are deepening efforts to secure facilities
and intellectual property. Encryption technologies are being used to protect
electronically transmitted data as well as information that’s stored or archived.

According to InformationWeek Research’s 2001 Global Information Security
Survey, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 24% of companies
worldwide and 27% in the United States are encrypting data for transmission
or storage.”

Reuters (via Wired News): “A British woman cracked a key component of Germany’s top-secret Enigma encoding machine before World War II began, but her
supervisors dismissed her theory as too simple, according to a new book published on Monday.

British newspapers ran excerpts of the book, Action This Day, which claims that discoveries made by a female codebreaker known only as “Mrs.
BB” could have opened the secrets of the encoding machine and shortened the war.”

Albuquerque Journal (via Newsalert): “A decade ago, Los Alamos might have signed a licensing deal with a private company as a way of getting an idea like FreeBIOS out of the lab
and into wider use.

Instead, Los Alamos now gives away FreeBIOS to anyone who wants it. For free.

In return, new users help develop and improve the software, which benefits Los Alamos, said Rod Oldehoeft, head of the lab’s Advanced
Computing Group.

FreeBIOS is one of a number of recent examples in which the federally funded national laboratories are joining the open source software
movement.”