[Linux-aus] Funding a real job database

[rjm at herzfeld.com.au]

for what it's worth, one of the projects my company does (has done for
over 15 years) is hr placement - in particular contract work - mostly
engineers, architects, draughting staff, etc. right now i'm doing a new
version and web interface for candidates and clients. the code is mostly
mine (including the backend database, but excluding some useful oss php
and javascript stuff) and i'm happy to a) let lga use it, and b) host it.
with only the following conditions - 1. if it looks like someone (other
than contractors) is going to profit some or all of our costs should be
covered, 2. we get recognition as providers of the service, 3. advertising
(see 1), 4. if it gets really big and therefore really costly, we get some
say in how to cover those costs. and 5. brickbats and bouquets to us
because we always want to improve the software :-).

rick marshall


> On Monday 17 February 2003 12:49 pm, Jeff Waugh wrote:
>> <quote who="Leon Brooks">
>>> Put it this way: would the Department of Premier and Cabinet be keen
>>> on hiring somebody from perkypants.org? Even cyberknights.com.au is a
>>> luck-pushing name in this kind of field. Yet in terms of getting
>>> things done, the president of SLUG and `worse-half'-of-LA-Prez must
>>> be at least a reasonable choice.
>
>> Sure, I grok, but I would strongly suggest that these issues should be
>> of little to no importance to Linux Australia. :-)
>
>> If someone wants to start a consultants coalition or whatever [1],
>> then to Linux Australia, they ought to be on exactly the same playing
>> field as any other vendor. LA can be there to say "Sure, we have
>> support and vendors here in Australia, never fear", and that's a huge
>> win in itself.
>
>> [1] Which I've been interested in for some time, but there's never
>> quite enough time amongst everything else to do it... The curse of
>> small business.
>
> That's a bit part of what SLPWA is aimed at. SLPWA wants to relate to
> LA.  SLPWA is happy to do consultant-matching under LA's banner and/or
> throw  working code and database contents at LA for the purpose.
>
> LA doesn't necessarily want to get tied up in the details of the
> mechanism,  but I strongly suggest back that since LA and
> SLPWA/LinuxConsultants appear  to be doing exactly the same thing in
> slightly different ways with their  people/job databases we should at
> least start by joining forces for that  activity, and probably also
> consider expanding on it. SLPWA has expressed  willingness (and have a
> Committee meeting today, too, an appropriate time to  present issues for
> solution).
>
> A consultant's political position is often quite distinct from that of a
>  vendor (although there is also overlap, case in point being LinuxIT),
> likewise a job-seeker is chasing different politics to either. However,
> one  service that all would benefit from is a one-stop clearing-house
> for work  (including, of course, sales).
>
> A consultant-only organisation also doesn't have the infrastructure
> behind it  to take on sizeable chunks of work, particularly work which
> involves supy,  thereby invading vendor territory.
>
> In WA, at least, the Gummint is being seen to take steps which allow
> work to  be broken down into bite-sized chunks to facilitate
> participation by small  local businesses. An organisation facing this
> work basically needs to be  collectively weighty enough to take on an
> entire large contract for a very  simple reason: nobody is going to go
> for acquiring a solution that involves,  say, 70% WinXP supplied by a
> conventional bidder and 30% Linux workstations  supplied by SLPWA (or
> whoever) spread across several departments.
>
> SLPWA could conceptually expand to provide such a rendezvous service
> Australia-wide, but I don't think that's a good idea, and would much
> prefer  to see an LA-coordinated network of SLPWA-like organisations.
> Not sure which  hat(s) I'm wearing, if any, when I make that
> pronouncement. If the  arrangement were to be so, it would make sense
> for LA to be the visible  interface, hosting (at least the domain of) a
> people/work/contract router,  and routing enquiries pitched at a state
> level and below to individual State  organisations, where such exist.
>
> Of course, homogeneity is too much to hope for. As CLUG is different in
> structure to most of the other LUGs, so OSV is different in both intent
> and  organisation to SLPWA. AFAIK, nothing concrete exists in
> 3x-our-population  NSW at all.
>
> WRT expanding the rendezvous service and making it `serious', Jeff, your
>  keep-it-light approach is fine, given one important qualifier. There
> must be  an entity - be it suited corporation or tee-shirted grassroots
> organisation -  which both has Linux at heart and can be taken seriously
> as a
> people/work/contract-router by government and larger businesses. I
> stringly  suspect that LA want to wear that hat as part of being a
> central, one-stop,  well-organised but non-dictatorial point of contact
> for Linux in Australia,  even if the actual rendezvous service is run by
> a corporation.
>
> My agitating towards having the service run by a real paid person or
> people  is, I hope, a reasonable compromise that will be light enough to
> preserve the  Linux ethos (fuzzy though that is) but weighty and
> competent enough to be  tken seriously by the appropriate suits.
>
> We also happen to have at least one suitable person (I could probably
> dredge  up 3 or 4 with a bit of effort) to hand at the moment. Carpe
> diem?
>
> Cheers; Leon
>
> --
> http://cyberknights.com.au/     Modern tools; traditional dedication
> http://plug.linux.org.au/       Committee Member, Perth Linux User Group
> http://slpwa.asn.au/            Committee Member, Linux Professionals WA
> http://linux.org.au/            Committee Member, Linux Australia
>
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