@Brainiac, thank you for the questions. Some thots inline:<br><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 7:56 AM, [Brainiac] <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:arebacollins@gmail.com" target="_blank">arebacollins@gmail.com</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class="gmail_quote">just a thought though: 
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<div>1: if open source software is competition, what about local developers of open source. </div></blockquote>
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<div>- IMHO, under the eligibilty of members:  Open Source, Frameworks, Platforms are all welcome. What is not welcome is the vendors under Open Source i.e software or applications which are really an imported, complete solution and tweaked for local consumption. This is fake development, and falls under resellers. </div>

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<div>- Developers and companies that create from Open Source, Frameworks, and Platforms will use the base of such technologies to create for the local and international market. </div>
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<div>However, for the portfolio, let us thrash this one out as much as possible and also include all Web and Application developers/companies. In such cases, for example the use of non-kenyan images for web layouts will mean that such developer companies/developers are not eligeable for memberships. In the long term, we must avoid the Click, download and ready to go solutions. </div>

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<div>2: what about contributors to non local software? </div></blockquote>
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<div>Kindly elaborate more on this. </div>
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<div>i am sure there has been enough talk ot open source and e-gov, where does this put the association? do we end up saying well create a distro flavour of linux that is local so that we can promote it for e-gov? </div>
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<div>On the E-Govt side, what would be interesting to know is what they currently use and its limitations. If they are dependent on imported packages, then it is up to us to create a competitve  product to match such but not use a product, tweak setup or config files that has already been developed by others.</div>

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<div>I like the in house certification bit. Its about time companies stopped asking for MCSE and CCNA as the absolute requirements.. 
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<div>The software certifcation will also allows us to ensure that our locally developed application either for the desktop, server, or web enviroments complies with standards- therefore prospective clients can be assured of quality similar to that of imported software. We can also look at Frameworks and Platforms certifications.</div>

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<div> Please keep the discussions going, we would like to develop our Portfolio first and look at what we need to do to get this Association/Forum/Group off the ground. </div>
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