Promoting FOSS and Ubuntu

[Sebastian Spiess]

Paul Garrett 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.
> 
> Paul Garrett
> (Aubrey)
> Canberra
> 

Hi Paul,

when I first read you post I thought, hey this guy is looking into some serious work. :-) Now some days later I spend some 
thought on you post.

Besides the many people who answer post on forums and mailing list which target mainly tech issues there are many things to 
do. As linux/Ubuntu is a tech thing you will always end up with some kind of involvement into tech topics but I am sure you 
are aware of this already.

You are looking for a active community project? I think there are active projects on every corner but many are small and 
they might be hard to find at first. In many occasions this could mean not working directly "with" Ubuntu.

So here are some things I came up with.
- translation
- documentation / wiki
- artwork
- publicity
- promote FOSS/ODF etc to friends, family, local politician as long as it needs to convince them (IMHO this is one of the 
hardest ones)
- educate people
- software reviews
- test hardware and write reports/how-tos
- donate to projects
- raise funds
- help Sridhar :-)

and there is the huge field of bug/beta/alpha testing which is of course a tech thing.

It could even be that the local LUG is just missing the active moment you bring along to do bigger things.

just my 2 ct.

Sebastian