[Ubuntu-PH] Proposal: Some changes to UBUNTU-PH as a community

[Jerome Gotangco]

Hi all,

Hope all is well in the community. At the moment, we have a revamped
website and starting to take shape with the help of some people.

I'm sending this email to present a proposal I've discussed with some
people in the #ubuntu-ph channel on freenode IRC regarding the group
and how to improve community involvement. So far I'm getting positive
responses so I'm pushing this now via email.

As most of you know, I am based in Quezon City as well as some people
visibly active in the community, but in my travels outside the city, I
have met a lot of people using Ubuntu and organizing various
activities in their own respective communities that even exceed those
happening in the capital region.

So obviously, UBUNTU-PH != Greater Manila Area.

This is what I would like to cultivate and grow fruit in the future. I
would like to see people active in their local community get the
exposure from the global ubuntu community and eventually have people
contribute to development of free software in general. Most people
have the skills to make it possible; they just don't know where to
start and having a tight local community can translate to a lot of
things in unlocking the potential of people.

I'm proposing that we split UBUNTU-PH into three major subgroups:
Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. It's possible to have minor subgroups
within major subgroups (Like Ubuntu Zamboanga be under Ubuntu
Mindanao) as Launchpad makes it possible. These major subgroups are
distinct from each other, may organize their own activities, and have
a representative get author access rights to the Ubuntu-ph.org website
as well as add more people into Planet.

In turn, recognized ubuntu-members can act as mentors on guiding these
groups/people on how to be more involved into development of Ubuntu
itself with the goal of having more technical people involved in free
software development and non-technical people involved in advocacy,
artwork, marketing, etc.

We would like to make this community-based as much as possible. We may
be affiliated with various organizations that may or may not have
Ubuntu as part of their business strategy - that is fine as long as
business interests do not get into the community itself.. What we
would like to see is have a very healthy free software ecosystem based
on Ubuntu with a very good community of users and supporters.

I'm also calling for an IRC meeting on August 1, 2006 at 8pm (+8UTC)
in the #ubuntu-ph IRC channel on freenode so we could discuss more of
this as a community. If an IRC meeting is not possible, we may also do
a Y!M group chat for those not able to do via IRC.

Best,

Jerome G.

-- 
Jerome Gotangco
jgotangco at ubuntu.com
Mobile: +639196555242
Jabber: jgotangco at jabber.org
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