[Ubuntu-SG] South-East Asian FOSS Collaboration

[Nicholas Ng]

Hi guys,

Well, actually the problem occurred elsewhere including Malaysia.
Microsoft have been brainwashing our minds from the start when we have
"pirated" Windows, Office, etc. Those illegal software which we can
get for free (or with very cheap price) has made all of us addicted to
it and therefore most of us do not dare to try out other software or
operating systems (OSes) because we have been too dependent and "get
used to it".

In Malaysia, our FOSS adoptions mostly carried out and driven by FOSS
advocates, LUGs as well as other open source communities throughout
the country. These groups has been carry out various activities such
as meet up, talk, seminar, InstallFest, workshop, etc to public where
public can learn more about FOSS as well as know more about the
benefits of it.

In the last few years, Malaysia government has started to recognized
the important and benefits of FOSS and through the [1] Open Source
Competency Centre (OSCC) which is under the [2] Malaysian
Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU), the
government started to push for the usage of FOSS and introduce the [3]
Malaysian Public Sector OSS Master Plan.

Sorry for the long introduction about Malaysia's FOSS. =P

Well, the collaboration between other LoCo teams or groups within the
region is very welcomed and we at Malaysia LoCo Team also discussed
about it and we have been contacting with the Indonesia LoCo Team to
exchange ideas, experiences and knowledge. I myself planned to meet
with the Indonesia Team last month while I was there but due to my
tight schedule the meeting has been cancelled.

I am currently on and off to Singapore (business trips) and maybe when
I was there, we can have a meet up just to chit chat and exchange
ideas. :) Look forward for better collaboration among us.

Thanks.

[1] http://oscc.org.my/
[2] http://www.mampu.gov.my/
[3] http://www.oscc.org.my/content/view/103/96/


With best regards,

Nicholas Ng
Ubuntu Member
Ubuntu Malaysia LoCo Team
(http://ubuntu.com.my/)

On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 12:08 AM, Maung Myat Thu @ Billy Aung Myint
<billy at ubuntu.sg> wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-08-10 at 20:14 +0800, Muhammad Heidir wrote:
>> Hi Nicholas,
>>
>> It will be certainly great if we could come up for a meeting. I'm sure
>> we can share ideas, experiences and plan about promoting FOSS adoption
>> in the region. This will bring great benefits to each other culturally
>> too.
>>
>> I heard that Malaysia and Indonesia has a lot of FOSS users due to its
>> low-cost(..free) and can be tailored to different languages such as
>> Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia. My guess is, FOSS can be readily
>> accepted mainstream, its just a matter of time. I would like to know
>> you thoughts about this.
>>
>> Whereas in Singapore, most of the companies here prefers Microsoft,
>> because they come pre-installed, and Microsoft provides support
>> including most of the Administrators are MCSE certified. The problem
>> starts at the educational level, where students are overly exposed to
>> Microsoft based Operating Systems and Applications. Due to this
>> familiarisation and training conducted on Microsoft products,
>> naturally they are more accustomed to use it. If only we could project
>> to them the benefits and advantage of using an Open systems, they will
>> somehow understand.
>
> Actually the problem is a recursive loop. Teachers themselves are not
> sure about anything other than windows so they will make a hell of a
> noise if schools buy non-ms systems and of course they can't teach any
> other than windows.So they teach windows to students who only learnt
> windows.
>
> Since everyone who got out of IT school knows windows , they are
> everywhere and are dirt cheap to hire and fire.Therefore companies love
> them. And the companies only buy windows systems because the people they
> hire only knows windows.
>
> Since companies only hire windows admins/programmers , schools only
> teach windows stuff saying market only wants windows skills. and this
> goes on and on and on and on and on.... sort of like a recursive loop
>
> Ramblings from former vice-president of NgeeAnn Polytechnic Linux Users
> Group,
> billy
>
>>
>> Anyway, I look forward to meeting with South-East Asians FOSS
>> enthusiasts!
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> supervivid
>
>
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