Promoting FOSS and Ubuntu

[Sridhar Dhanapalan]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 at 09:32, Paul Garrett <pgarrett at homemail.com.au> wrote:
> Happy Easter all.
>
> I have been scouring the web for active community projects in Australia
> - and in Canberra specifically - with a view to getting involved or
> contributing in some way.  I'm not a techie but probably have some
> skills/time/money to donate.  I was attracted to the ubuntu-au projects
> listed on the loco wiki page
> (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AustralianTeam/Projects) but the information
> there is a bit old and it actually gives the impression of not much
> actually happening (the last update was in October 2006).   And the web
> presence of my local LUG hardly creates an impression of activity beyond
> eating pizza and generally "getting together" in a fairly disorganised,
> undergrad-type way.  As I already have a family, a social life and a
> job, I was looking for something else.  As a 30 year veteran of the
> public service, I'm not really interested in attending admin meetings
> any more - in person or on-line.
>
> I know that people are active here on this mailing list and on the
> Ubuntu forums, but beyond the support offered for technical problems and
> the FOSS Open Day, (and the obligatory periodic rants about MS) is
> anyone still actively promoting uptake of Ubuntu and FOSS in Australia?
> Have I missed something?  Is there an active community out there
> somewhere doing something?
>
> This is not meant to be a criticism of ubuntu-au.  Far from it.  I'm
> just curious about the (apparent) lack of engagement through outreach
> projects and am wondering where the action is.

Speaking for myself, I am very active in Sydney LUG (SLUG), which is an 
incorporated organisation with a constitution, AGM and structured meetings 
(with talks) every month. Inter alia, I'm currently gearing up for the 
Education Expo[0], where I'll be running the Linux Australia stand.

We do have people involved in advocacy and events organisation, but 
unfortunately we don't have enough. To cite evidence, LA doesn't have a CeBIT 
stand this year, which makes me sad as I ran the one last year.

Hackers/sysadmins generally don't take to such things. Less technical people 
should be stepping forwards to fill the void to help take care of 
organisational/advocacy matters. I gave up on real coding some time ago, 
realising that my efforts were better spent on facilitating and growing the 
community. Without a real community to bind the disparate FOSS fiefdoms and 
to invite and welcome newcomers, FOSS will have a hard time growing.

This is a problem. I've been trying to think of solutions, but the only real 
one is to encourage people to get involved at an organisational/executive 
level as much as possible.


[0] http://www.edexpo.info/

-- 
"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls 
the past" - George Orwell
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