Ubuntu LoCo's should move to LibrePlanet

Efrain Valles effie-jayx at ubuntu.com
Wed Jun 9 03:58:42 BST 2010


 I am not very familiar with LibrePlanet but one of the things that
brings me to LoCo team is the openess and respect for each other all
described in the CoC and other docs.

I think part of what makes us is the feeling of respect and admiration
for our work.  I believe this is hard to achieve when we often get
reminded of how we are not part of the elite free crowds.

Just my 2 cents

2010/6/8, Michael <mhall119 at gmail.com>:
> I understand what it is you want to accomplish by this, but I think that
> upon closer inspection of the premise of your argument, you will see
> that this not only is a less ideal approach than what we already have,
> but may actually be detrimental to your stated cause.
>
> As you implied, and was explicitly stated by someone else, Ubuntu LoCos
> are not FLOSS advocacy groups, they are Ubuntu advocacy groups.  You
> view this as a narrowing of focus, when for most of us it is a
> broadening of focus.  I support Ubuntu not just because it is free
> software, but because decisions are made more on practical improvements
> than adherence to ideology or tradition.  I like that community
> involvement is not only encouraged but financially supported.  That
> Canonical spends time and effort directly on community projects, and
> that they accept community contributions directly to Ubuntu projects.  I
> like the ethos of Canonical, not just the ethos of Free Software, and
> thus my advocacy is not well suited for a community based on narrow
> views of the Free Software community, but rather to the broader views
> shared by the Ubuntu community.
>
> It is true that Ubuntu LoCos share much the same goal as other FLOSS
> groups.  However, goals are a poor glue for binding together groups of
> people.  We have seen examples of this not just in FLOSS groups, but
> also in political and special interest groups.  History is filled with
> examples which prove that what binds people together is a common path
> that they follow, not a common destination that they are all moving
> towards.  Even today, in political and cultural conflicts around the
> world, what keeps people working together is a sense of direction, not a
> sense of destination.  Ubuntu LoCos are an example of this, we regularly
> have members that have little or no interest in FLOSS market share, but
> connect with the community because they like the tools being developed,
> of the friendships being fostered, or the support provided.  If the only
> thing we had in common was wanting to solve bug #1, we would be
> fractured and infighting more often than we would be working towards
> improvement.
>
> There is an evolution that every new Linux user goes through, where they
> declare that the different distros and desktop environments were causing
> an unnecessary duplication of effort, and they advocate that if we would
> just all join together, combine KDE and Gnome, combine Debian, Ubuntu,
> Fedora and Suse, that the combination would somehow be greater than the
> sum of it's parts.  This notion of unifying all the different FLOSS
> communities into a single entity that will be greater than the sum of
> it's parts is, to me, the same mistake in assumptions.  Our real
> strength is in our diversity, because we can make more changes, try more
> things, and learn what works faster when we each focus on our own
> efforts in our own way.  This is as true for communities and advocacy as
> it is for software development.  We would be more constrained by trying
> to maintain unity in a single consolidated community than any one
> community is by focusing on it's own efforts.
>
> You asked if unifying efforts was more in line with the nature of FLOSS,
> I would argue that it is in fact the opposite.  The nature of FLOSS is
> one of easy forking and incorporation based on merit.  There are so many
> examples of this that I don't even have to mention them, anybody reading
> this will likely already have several brought to mind.  The very
> existence of Ubuntu is proof positive of this nature.  A singular
> product with a singular effort will always stagnate, while duplicate
> products with duplicate efforts will continue to innovate, incorporating
> the best ideas as they show themselves to be the best ideas, but always
> with their own direction, their own path, and their own pace.
>
> If somebody does not want to become involved in your LoCo because they
> don't like what the "banner" represents, then they shouldn't be in your
> LoCo, they should have their own efforts that follow their own
> direction, with people who share the same direction.  They can take what
> ideas and processes we have that they believe are best, and leave those
> they think are lacking, and we should encourage and support them in
> doing this.  But we should not say they should combine their efforts
> with ours, or combine our efforts with theirs.  We're all going to the
> same place, but that doesn't mean we all have to take the same roads.
>
>
> --
> Michael <mhall119 at gmail.com>
>
>
> On Tue, 2010-06-08 at 17:06 -0400, Danny Piccirillo wrote:
>> Please pass this on to discuss with your loco teams.
>> http://blog.thesilentnumber.me/2010/06/why-ubuntu-locos-should-move-to.html
>>
>>
>> In the debate over whether it is worth supporting projects like Ubuntu
>> which are not purely free software, my opinion thus far remains that
>> Ubuntu does help further the free software movement. Arguments against
>> this are welcome, but that is a discussion for a future post. The
>> reason that Ubuntu's local community teams should move to LibrePlanet
>> is because having one of the worlds strongest FLOSS advocacy networks
>> centered around one piece of software and sponsored by one company is
>> a disservice to the greater free software community.
>>
>> I have been heavily involved in Ubuntu advocacy for years, but for a
>> while now, i've been considering the prospect of local teams operating
>> independent of Canonical. This would not be a move to abandon Ubuntu,
>> but simply to open up more possibilities and reach our full potential.
>> Most people in LoCos are not loyal to Ubuntu, but to free software
>> (aka open source). We are united by a set of ideals and work together
>> to promote software which helps further these ideals. Why then, must
>> all of our advocacy revolve around one GNU+Linux distribution? There
>> are two main reasons for why it currently does.
>>
>> Firstly, because Ubuntu is seen by most people as the best way to
>> introduce new people to a (mostly) free desktop environment. It is
>> certainly much easier to simply promote one operating system than a
>> family of them. Still, this is no reason to limit ourselves. A team
>> not entirely exclusive to Ubuntu can just as easily choose to promote
>> Ubuntu exclusively for events aimed at the general public. Ubuntu may
>> be the best now, but if something better came along or if Ubuntu went
>> downhill, we should be able and ready to adapt. Being an Ubuntu LoCo
>> does not provide this flexibility.
>>
>> Secondly, because the infrastructure is there. Canonical provides a
>> wiki and mailing lists to their teams and in exchange, the teams work
>> for them, albeit loosely, as part of the Ubuntu LoCo project, under
>> its name and banner. Canonical also provides printed install discs to
>> officially approved teams, but there is no reason why Canonical should
>> not provide sponsorship to any team of people who will be promoting
>> Ubuntu. It's mutually beneficial. In the meantime, to continue
>> receiving materials only provided to officially approved teams, LoCo's
>> can continue to operate alongside LibrePlanet groups. This isn't all
>> to say that Canincal has been working to actively lock teams in, but
>> this is the effect it now has. Creating the LoCo project, providing
>> the structure needed to establish global network of local advocacy
>> teams, was a great service, but the time has come to grow beyond its
>> current scope.
>>
>> LibrePlanet is inspired by Ubuntu's LoCo Project, but it's instead
>> organized around ideals, not any particular piece of software. Surely
>> there are some who only care about what tools work best, but let's not
>> forget the ideals which made these better tools possible. Most of us
>> imagine a world where these ideals are universal and see an incredible
>> amount of potential in that. LibrePlanet isn't yet another social
>> group for GNU+Linux users, but a team of activists. These groups are
>> more open to users of any free software who may be interested in
>> advocacy. Sponsorship could come from Canonical, Mozilla, or whoever.
>> Isn't this much more in line with the nature of FLOSS?
>>
>> Being a LoCo does in many ways lock you in to promoting Ubuntu. You
>> may promote other software and welcome users of other distros, but by
>> their very title, LoCo teams exist for Ubuntu. The very reason i began
>> taking this idea seriously is because some non-Ubuntu users wanted to
>> get involved with an event organized by my local community team, but
>> did not want to work under an Ubuntu banner (literally). I don't blame
>> them. I went on to discover many people who lurk on our mailing list
>> and even IRC channel simply hadn't gotten involved because they were
>> put off by the exclusive nature of the group even though they do
>> happen to use Ubuntu themselves. There is an incredible network of
>> people out there who want to help, and we shouldn't box them out.
>>
>> Many people have some badly tainted perceptions of the FSF, but being
>> a LibrePlanet team does not require strict adherence to FSF
>> rules. Teams could work on would be creating a voice for free software
>> that doesn't have the (in my opinion mostly wrong) reputation of the
>> FSF to be too extreme, and this is coming from someone who often
>> doesn't agree with their approach. To provide an example and get the
>> ball rolling, i'd like to announce the LibrePlanet Massachusetts Team.
>>
>> Mailing
>> list: http://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-us-ma
>> IRC: #libreplanet-us-ma on FreeNode
>>
>>         The LibrePlanet Massachusetts Team is a group of volunteers
>>         and activists organized around furthering the ideals of free
>>         software and related issues concerning digital rights and free
>>         culture.
>>
>>         This group is working towards a free society through free
>>         software, but we are not a local Free Software Foundation
>>         team. We share the same end goals as the FSF, but some of us
>>         may find it necessary and more effective to make some
>>         temporary compromises with proprietary software in order to
>>         better spread free software. Some of us may not necessarily
>>         say GNU+Linux or always say "free software" instead of "open
>>         source", and some of us may use pragmatic benefits to advocate
>>         free software with the understanding that freedom is the
>>         underlying concern and principle which makes it all possible.
>>         We are open to people of all levels of interest in free
>>         software and welcome new participants. We are all united in
>>         the fight for software freedom as an important and necessary
>>         means for the prospect of a free society.
>>
>>
>> You can start your own LibrePlanet chapter
>> here: http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Form:Group
>>
>> --
>> .danny
>>
>> ☮♥Ⓐ - http://www.google.com/profiles/danny.piccirillo
>> Every (in)decision matters.
>>
>
>
>
> --
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> loco-contacts at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/loco-contacts
>

-- 
Enviado desde mi dispositivo móvil

Efrain Valles
https://launchpad.net/~effie-jayx



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