Appropedia:Memorandum of Understanding/OLPC

Human-readable summary[edit | edit source]

Appropedia and One Laptop Per Child are working together on gathering and developing content for the XO laptop a.k.a. "Children's Machine" or "$100 Laptop".

Both organizations cooperate on copyright release of content which is locked up due to unclear copyright status.
Both organizations cooperate on finding and facilitating content owners (such as development organizations) that wish to share their content through OLPC's XO.
Both organizations work together on finding ways to share content more easily, by converting to wiki format.
Appropedia manages content.
OLPC focuses on distribution and localization.

Text of MoU[edit | edit source]

Memorandum of Understanding Version 1.0 Beta, updated 15 December 2008

1. Preamble

A Memorandum of Understanding is a legal document describing a bilateral or multilateral agreement between parties. It expresses a convergence of will between the parties, indicating an intended common line of action and may not imply a legal commitment. - www.wikipedia.org, referenced 13 August 2007

This Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) forms the basis of a voluntary strategic partnership between One Laptop per Child (OLPC) and Appropedia established to better achieve the strategic aims of each organization.

This MoU is not a contractual document and does not impose any legal obligation on either party. The overall relationship described by this MoU is a voluntary arrangement, intended to provide benefits for both parties and for society. This MoU is independent of agreements signed between OLPC or its international affiliates, and either Appropedia or the Open Sustainability Network.

2. Organizations

2.1 Appropedia

The Appropedia Foundation is a California non-profit corporation (corporation number C2946932) supporting an international community for the purpose of "sharing knowledge to build rich, sustainable lives."

2.2 One Laptop per Child

The One Laptop per Child Foundation is a Delaware non-profit corporation (corporation number: 3994627), an education project whose mission is to provide a means for learning, self-expression, and exploration to the nearly two billion children of the developing world with little or no access to education.

3. Initial areas for collaboration

The aim of this voluntary strategic partnership in general terms is for the Appropedia Foundation to work with OLPC to create content, take care of current and future content, and work on copyright release issues while OLPC focuses on distribution and localization of the XO and related products.

Specific objectives are as follows:

To work together on creating content for the XO, a.k.a. the Children's Machine.
To work together on copyright release of content which is locked up due to unclear copyright status.
To work together on the translation of content.
To work together on converting documents from proprietary formats to wiki format, to speed the creation of content bundles for the XO.
Appropedia curates content to be packaged for the XO, especially in development issues, public health, appropriate technology, sustainability and related areas. This involves managing and maintaining the collection of pages on this topic, facilitating the marking of content to be included, and providing support to those individuals and organizations that wish to participate in the development of this content.
OLPC focuses on distribution of the laptops and localization of software.
To share information of events, publications and activities of interest to the organizations and their stakeholders.
To consider additional specific projects where collaboration may be effective and efficient (e.g.:...).

4. Mission

This relationship between OLPC and Appropedia supports both organizations in their missions:

Appropedia: "Sharing knowledge to build rich, sustainable lives." This partnership helps achieve several things central to Appropedia's mission:

Reaching those in less developed communities
Making Appropedia content available to be integrated into education
Collaborating with a wider cross-section of the development and sustainability communities to develop the most comprehensive resources for the improvement of human well-being.

5. Schedule

This memorandum of understanding stands for a period of N years from date. It will be reviewed annually by each party or as required. Either party can cancel this MoU by giving 30 days notice to the other party.

6. Published Materials

This is an open document. Each organization will be able to clearly state and acknowledge this document to donors, members and other stakeholders, Such communications should be made known to the other party wherever possible, for example by forwarding or copying on emails.

Each organization will be able to use and display this document publicly, on their wiki and elsewhere. However, the version as signed should be preserved in a protected form. Any proposed drafts or modifications should not be mistaken for the actual agreement.

This document is published jointly under open licenses: the GFDL and the CC-BY-SA 2.5, the licenses of Appropedia's and OLPC's wikis respectively. It may be reused with attribution under either license.

7. Signatures

This MoU reflects the common understanding of the following parties:

(Directors of Appropedia) S.J. Klein
Title Title
Appropedia Foundation One Laptop per Child
Date: Date: Date:

8. Annexes

It is suggested that this section be deleted.

Agreement for Specific Collaboration on...

Footnotes?[edit | edit source]

The following ideas were intended to be incorporated into the text of the MoU in some way. But perhaps it is not needed.

This is a non-exclusive agreement. OLPC may take additional content from anywhere (and will definitely do so in areas outside Appropedia's scope). Appropedia's content is developed for a wide audience online and offline, which includes users of XOs.

Questions etc[edit | edit source]

This section is for discussion of the text, not for the text itself (most of it can be moved to the talk page later).

Questions[edit | edit source]

Mel's comments via email - 09:28, 10 December 2008 (UTC):

How does this directly relate to fulfilling OLPC's mission? (Yeah, I know it's pretty obvious that it does, but we should state this explicitly. For that matter, Appropredia may want to also.) Chriswaterguy: I had a first stab at Appropedia's - now at 4. Mission.
How does this scale, for both parties? (Is either group considering writing more MoUs? Can something here be generalized? A template?) Chriswaterguy: Appropedia is considering more MoUs, and this would certainly be used as a reference.
What does this mean in terms of specific changes that need to be made, or actions that need to be taken, by individuals from both groups? Chriswaterguy: OLPC: direct content people to Appropedia. Appropedia: Develop the page(s) on "how to contribute content so that it ends up on the OLPC." (some of that is at OLPC content bundles for now).

Do we need to use clearer language for Appropedia's role? Some wording like "take information from contributors, including development and sustainability organizations and individuals, and gather it for inclusion on the XO." --Chriswaterguy 23:06, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Should we add to OLPC's role that they raise awareness of the process and point contributors to Appropedia? (They do this anyway.) --Chriswaterguy 23:06, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
How do we describe Appropedia's and OLPC's relative roles in localization? OLPC definitely handles localization of software, but translation of content is something where both organizations and communities can contribute, OLPC through its large community of volunteers, and Appropedia through service learning programs, as well as other members of the community. We would want to work closely, but not define that too much here: I've changed OLPC focuses on distribution and localization to OLPC focuses on distribution of the laptops and localization of software. with a separate point: To work together on the translation of content. --Chriswaterguy 05:49, 10 December 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
In "Schedule" it states "This memorandum of understanding stands for a period of N years from date." I would suggest making it on the long side - 2 years or longer - to avoid having to revisit it too quickly. Keep in mind it is not legally binding and can be easily revoked. --Chriswaterguy 05:49, 10 December 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
When we say "Appropedia curates content." What is meant by the terms curate (I think of museums) and content (are we talking operating systems, applications, all applications, some applications, and so on)? My current understanding of both organizations is limited, but it seems that we may be talking configuration management, providing downloads, or something like that.

The best definition I found is "To manage and maintain a collection. A curator is the person in charge of a museum, art collection, zoo, etc." I'll put that in. --Chriswaterguy 04:48, 7 December 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I got a comment from a friend that I asked to look at it, for the non-geek's perspective. "Maybe you should look into properly defining curation." I changed the term in the #Human-readable summary to "manage", and in the text of the MoU itself, I think the meaning is made clear.

Related to the above note, how does content for the XO-2 or pre XO models fit in? Do we want to limit this to the XO?

I think the development of the XO models is quite separate from the content, so I'm inclined to leave this undefined. If we talk about the XO-2 it might sounds like we're planning a long way ahead and lock in our "status". OLPC can say if they see it otherwise. --Chriswaterguy 04:48, 7 December 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I left last two bullets in Section 3 in because they encourage a synergistic relationship and proactively leave the door open for future opportunities.

Thank you Prstn! --Chriswaterguy 04:48, 7 December 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Notes & questions[edit | edit source]

Based on Memorandum of Understanding between EWB-UK and RedR UK
A similar template can be used for MoUs for the Open Sustainability Network. (We're rethinking this - current thinking among many OSN people is not to use an MoU for OSN, as it ties things down and makes OSN less open. --Chriswaterguy 23:06, 9 December 2008 (UTC))Reply[reply]
I tried adding "with Federal tax-exempt status (501c3)" to the "2. Organizations" section, for each organization, but it made it longer and read less smoothly. I took it out, but if it's felt this is important, it can be added back in.

The initial discussions[edit | edit source]

Key points (as discussed by Chriswaterguy of the Appropedia Foundation and SJ Klein of OLPC) in August 2008:

- working together on creating content for the XO aka Children's Machine.
- working together on copyright release of content which is locked up due to unclear copyright status.
- Appropedia curates content
- OLPC focuses on distribution and localization.