This is the wiki page for working on the Debian Non-Profit Custom Distribution.
If you're interested in helping on the quickly approaching Debian-NP bootable Morphix-based CD, check out the DebianNPTODO
Important Links
Main page at http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-nonprofit
Organizations supporting or working on this project DebianNPParticipants
Obtaining Debian-NP
Download the CD image at: http://debian-np.alioth.debian.org/debian-np-bootcd-0.1r2.iso
- Write it on CD: cdrecord -v -eject dev=0,0,0 -data debian-np-20031127-2.iso
- (if it does not work, you may need a different "dev=" setting: try cdrecord -scanbus to see what are your settings)
Our Audience
Non-profit is a term that refers to a wide varity of organizations that include s volunteer organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGO/ONG), foundations, not-for-profits, cooperativeis and civil society organizations.
(Can we build something that works for all? Can we articulate differences between each and tailor what we are doing to each? What about differences between NGOs and cooperatives? What about the difference between a NGO in Europe and one in the US?)
The real challenge in a NPO Distro is one of 'perception'. The non-profits must perceive it as something they can install, understand, use and benefit from.
Goals intended to be currently addressed by Debian Non Profit are listed in DebianNPGoals.
Our Name
In the US, Civil Society Organization would probably be the best term for who we are trying to reach here; in Italian, Organizzazioni della Società Civile; in Portuguese, Sociedade Civil; in Dutch, Ideeele Organisatie. However, not all places recognize "Civil Society Organization". In French, "société civile" means civil society, but it is strange to consider an organization as a part.
The term non-profit is more universally recognized (in French à but non lucratif). However, this term can be used to classify a ketchup-bottle-lovers club and officially is used in the US as a specific legal definition, while at the same time being used generally (it doesn't have to be a government-recognized tax-exempt organization, one where you get a tax-break if you donate). So we either have to come up with a different term that makes sense universally, or we piggy-back on the not very clear, misused and misunderstood term of "non-profit" when what we really are trying to do is make a distribution that caters to the needs of those organizations trying to do some social good.
Wiki Debian NP resources
Assessment of needs of non-profits in a OS: see DebianNPNeeds for the ongoing discussion of needs and design goals.
Debian NP specification: see DebianNPSpec for an evolving specification.
Core applications: see DebianNPCoreApps for a list of the main applications that Debian NP will provided.
Current status: see DebianNPStatus for the current development status.
Creating a Debian NP CD: see DebianNPMorphixHowto for a step-by-step log of making a Debian-NP Morphix CD.
TODO-list: see DebianNPTODO for the todo list.