Promoting FOSS and Ubuntu

[Paul Garrett]

Thanks Sebastian (and Sridhar) for your replies - certainly some good
suggestions for work at the individual level - and I have done (or am doing)
several of the things on your list.  Sridar's project sounds like a great
project too and I have also spoken with others off list about projects.

I guess I am looking for something collective to put some time into out 
of work
hours and I've been given some ideas - but nothing that is actually up 
and running.

If any Canberra-based members want to chat about trying a few real-world
promotional ideas - maybe an installfest or a public talk and 
demonstration,I'd
be happy to be involved. I'm alleged to have more front that Myers, so I 
can MC
anything or deal with crowds (Not teenagers though.  I hate teenagers).

A couple of things I've been thinking about (but couldn't bring off alone):

When I first started using Linux a couple of years ago, I scoured the adult
education course material for some sort of evening course but found 
nothing on offer.
(I did do a flyfishing course instead and it was great!). Maybe we can 
lobby the
relevant colleges and education bodies to get something started?

The other idea I had was to investigate whether there where any 
propeller heads
(sorry, "technically proficient people") who would want to volunteer 
their Linux
skills for charities or not-for-profit groups wanting to move to FOSS.  
We could
set up some sort of match-making web site and get the word out via mail and
demonstrations. There are so many ex-government computers being turned over
right now (thanks, I suspect, to Vista) that you can pick up a P4 3.0Ghz 
with
512Mb or 1Gb of RAM a 80Gb HDD and a DVD writer for around $200.  Surely 
some
worthy cause could turn a few of those, plus Ubuntu, into a pretty good 
office. 
But where would they get the skills and advice?  At least we could 
generate a
few Australian case studies (which are sorely lacking right now).

I have sort of been further inspired after finding a group (in the US) 
that seems to be
really pushing the FOSS benefits to community groups - check out
http://www.nosi.net/

Paul

Sebastian Spiess wrote:
>
> 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
>