community software lab computer icon
Status Reports from Cadre-Politics
Mission
pair programming / parking
October 20 2008
September 30 2008
August 18 2008
August 24 2008
July 14 2008
June 28 2008
March 06 2008
Notes on being mugged
January 04 2008
Services for Paul Hansen
Audit Notes
zip code sort notes
August 04 2007
July 14 2007
May 16 2007
April 29 2007
April 17 2007
January 15 2007
December 30 2006
December 16 2006
November 29 2006
November 07 2006
October 23 2006
September 30 2006
September 19 2006
August 23 2006
August 01 2006
July 17 2006
July 09 2006
July 03 2006
We're People People Too
Mike_Foster

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Donating

To give or pledge cash

click here

Individual donations go for things like:

Salaries, (to the extent we have them) are covered by larger grants (to the extent we win them)

For full details on spending see our checkbook register (.xls)

CSL Biggest Supporters

Our biggest supporters are UMass Lowell and the CTCVISTA project We would not exist without them. However, neither group is responsible for our mistakes.

Community Software Lab Mission

We write, administer and maintain open source software to serve the undeserved.

We use and improve the skills of people with underused skills

We work to make hacker sub culture values (transparency, meritocracy and generosity) the values of the entire culture and bring about the post scarcity society.

We work toward our mission by trying to achieve our short term goals transparently and generously while accumulating only necessary wealth.

CSL short term goals

  1. To make MVHub and NorthShorePort more useful than Google in their small social service niche.
  2. To make the software and data that run these sites available to anyone who wants to attempt to provide better service.

Very short term, over the next year or so, we plan to do better than Google (in our little niche) by making the info in our databases more easily indexed by Google.

Accidental job training

As a side effect of our goals, we provide practical experience to people with various unhappy labels such as "unemployed", "at risk", "entry level", "poor" and "old". Our goal is not to provide training but to get useful work done. Paradoxically our alumni claim that because we care more for the work than training they are better prepared for market rate jobs.

Old Goals

From 1999 to 2008, our primary short term goal was to provide reliable free email and web hosting to non-profit and community groups.

In 1999, this was an important need.

Right now, groups like Google, Dreamhost , Grassroots.org and riseup.net do a better job at this little piece of the post scarcity society than we do. Our goals have changed.

Helping as a volunteer

Our focus is not skills building or job development. Our focus is getting useful work done without much wealth. To volunteer with us, you need some skills. We're not as picky as groups hiring $60,000 per year software developers, but to volunteer with us you need to start with some small skills. Check out our (hopefully quick and easy) volunteeer test

More information

To keep in touch with our activities, you can join the CSL page on facebook or sign up for our cadre-politics mailing list:

Your email address:

 

At the moment the cadre-politics list traffic is mostly brief weekly/monthly bits of news about our work. For more information see the cadre-politcs archives

Anyone on the list can post to provide feedback. There are about 70 people on the list, Most members are CSL alumni or active volunteers.

If you subscribe please limit your posts to our work.