Re: [kFW] Draft letter to DTI asking for support...

[Daniel Harris <daniel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There's nothing like replying to your own emails... ;-) I had a meeting 
with Rupert Baines last week and discussed this letter. Here's the latest 
draft. Comments please...

Dear Charles Sandbank,

As you know Kendra Initiative has been running for a number of years now 
(since mid 2000). We are increasing our numbers on a continual basis. We 
currently have over 1400 people on our mailing list. Our network trial is 
modeling a global cross-vendor content delivery network with 27 servers 
worldwide. We are set to expand this trial to include live content too.

It is time to take the Kendra project to the next stage, giving us 
consistent website development, hosting and collaboration tools. I am going 
to create Kendra Foundation, a non-profit company, employing a small team 
to keep things moving on and provide infrastructure to facilitate 
interested parties to come together to build the system.

I would like to call on your assistance in finding out what type of 
organisation we would need to be in order to satisfy requirements for DTI 
funding. So, to be blunt, we would like the DTI to provide:

1. Funding for Kendra Foundation.

2. Advice on company structures.

3. Help with networking, promotion and liaisons with other digital content 
related groups.

Please could we set up a meeting with the relevant people in the DTI to 
facilitate this process.

For a brief understanding of where Kendra Foundation fits in here's a brief 
description of the Kendra project:

Kendra Aim - to see facilities for consumers to be able to get access to 
all digital content, when they want it and be able to pay for it easily and 
conveniently. To see facilities for content owners to be able to make their 
digital content available to consumers and be able to charge for it (if 
they require) easily and conveniently. This system will be have an open 
architecture enabling any consumer to transact with any content owner in an 
easy and convenient manner and enabling any service provider to participate 
providing services for consumers and content owners.

Kendra System - a system that satisfies the Kendra Aim.

Kendra Initiative - a group of people/organisations using their Initiative 
to bring Kendra to reality by going through a collaborative design process 
and participating in Kendra trials. Trials will include content delivery 
networks and peer-to-peer systems, commerce, digital rights management, 
metadata and interface design.

Kendra Foundation - to provide organisational, legal, and financial support 
for Kendra Initiative. Kendra Foundation would ensure that Kendra 
Initiative trials continue to exist beyond the participation of interested 
organisations and individual volunteers, to enable contributions of 
intellectual property and funds on a sound basis, and to provide a vehicle 
for limiting legal exposure while participating in the trials and 
contributing to software projects. Kendra Foundation would provide hosting 
for the Kendra Initiative website and develop web/email tools to facilitate 
the collaborative design process, between Kendra Initiative participants, 
necessary to create the Kendra system. Coordinating marketing efforts, 
meetings and conferences.

For more details see: www.kendra.org.uk

This letter has been discussed and reviewed on the Kendra Framework mailing 
list.

I look forward to your response.

Regards,

Daniel Harris