Hi all,
One of the many exciting things that have been going on in the last week is a discussion among a number of the Canadians who were at the INKE meeting in Cuba last month picking up the question of computing infrastructure, and working with minimal resources (this is a discussion that was started in the Cuban meeting).
Not everybody in the discussion was on the globaloutlook list at the time, so it was happening off list. But since this is a topic on which different perspectives are absolutely constructive, it would make a lot of sense to move it here, at least initially, so that others who are interested can get to know each other.
We don't really have a model for conducting such discussions. Should people work things out on this list, for example, or instead invite people to participate off list and report back so as not to flood people's inboxes?
It seems to me that once the executive is established, we may find that we want to set up working groups on specific projects and regions who could initiate projects and report back periodically. Maybe this is one of those.
Anyway: I'll had the floor over to John Simpson at Alberta and Jentery Sayers at UVic to explain more about the discussions they've all been having on this topic.
-dan