Free Software & The Queensland Flood Crisis

[Jared Norris]

On 13 January 2011 18:38, Nathaniel <nathaniel73 at gmail.com> wrote:
> IKT, They are all good questions that you raise, I guess I was thinking
> along the lines of people getting replacement bare bones towers themselves &
> then we just provide the OS.
>
> Maybe it would be possible to talk to a major retailer about doing a deal on
> basic tower / monitor combos for flood victims. What does everyone think
> about that possibility.
>
> Chris that's a very generous offer, the thing is, If people were going to
> donate machines who would coordinate the collection, storage and
> distribution of them.
>
> On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 1:36 PM, chris at martin.cc <chris at martin.cc> wrote:
>>
>> I have 2 machines that I would be happy to donate
>> Already installed with Ubuntu
>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>> Chris Martin
>> m: 0419812371
>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 3:57 PM, IKT <noname420 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Indeed this does seem like a decent idea, there are several issues
>>> though:
>>>
>>> Where to acquire pc's.
>>> How to acquire pc's.
>>> How to ensure the pc's are delivered to people who need them.
>>>
>>> - ikt
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 6:13 PM, Nathaniel <nathaniel73 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> Firstly I'd like to say Hello to all the list members as this is my
>>>> first post here. I've been using Linux for 2 yrs now & have been totally
>>>> Windows free for the past 18 months (& loving it!). I've mainly used Ubuntu
>>>> starting with 8.04 but have also ventured away to Fedora, Crunchbang and
>>>> Linux Mint for the wife's laptop. Ubuntu seems to fit me best & I'm
>>>> currently very happy with 10.04.
>>>>
>>>> Now onto why I started this post.
>>>>
>>>> I have been following the shocking events in Queensland for the past
>>>> several weeks. I'd like to extend my thoughts and best wishes for everyone
>>>> on this list and your families that may be caught up in the terrible floods.
>>>> I hope your all safe, dry & that the Linux box is high enough to survive :-)
>>>>
>>>> Anyway whilst I was reading about the terrible floods it occurred to me
>>>> that Free Software could play a part in the rebuilding phase of Queensland.
>>>> Peoples homes and businesses have been devastated by the flood waters and
>>>> the most important thing for them is getting back to work to provide an
>>>> income to rebuild their lives.
>>>>
>>>> Windows and Ms Office cost a huge amount if you have to buy them off the
>>>> shelf and especially at this time when money is tight to non-existent it is
>>>> just another expense to add to an already long list.
>>>>
>>>> So my suggestion is this. If we could get some cd's burnt with Ubuntu on
>>>> them and pass them around to people such as businesses, charities,schools &
>>>> families that have lost their computers to flood damage it would help them
>>>> to get up and running again as well as being a great promotional exercise
>>>> for Ubuntu and Free Software in general.
>>>>
>>>> Ubuntu already comes with everything needed to start work, Firefox,
>>>> Evolution and OpenOffice. To further simplify things, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS could
>>>> be used instead of the latest 10.10. Then simply set Synaptic to only
>>>> download LTS updates thereby minimising the number of update notifications
>>>> they would have to deal with.
>>>>
>>>> I really hope we can make the most of this opportunity both for the
>>>> people of Queensland and for Ubuntu and the Open Source community.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Regards
>>>>
>>>> Nathaniel
>>>> (Perth, WA)
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> ubuntu-au mailing list
>>>> ubuntu-au at lists.ubuntu.com
>>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Regards
>
> Nathaniel
>
> Find me on http://www.facebook.com/nathaniel73
>
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>
>


Good afternoon all,

One of the easiest ways to do this is to not try and do it all
ourselves. If you have stuff to donate talk to your local Salvation
Army group (or any other charity you would like that can help). They
already have the means to distribute these to the needy and already
probably have lists of people who need stuff like this. If you don't
have any computers to donate I would still suggest people contact them
and let them know that you have a free operating system that will
afford them all the uses of a proprietary operating system without the
licensing costs. Who knows, they might have computers already sitting
there unable to be given out as they don't have proprietary licenses.

Regards,

Jared Norris
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JaredNorris