[Ubuntu-US-CA] Project: Letters to our Representatives

[Nathan Haines]

On 01/28/2013 02:11 PM, Grant Bowman wrote:
> We will target our state legislature (assembly and
> senate), CA congressional representatives (house and senate) and local
> media with an announcement of what uds.ubuntu.com is and what it might
> mean to them. We should include how they might be able to learn more
> and/or even participate.

I think this is a really confusing and poorly-defined idea, and I think 
that as far as it is defined it is a bad idea.

UDS is a development sprint; it's not a social gathering.  It's set up 
to get people working world-wide on important parts of the Ubuntu 
project together in one room so they can discuss and decide the focus 
for their work for the upcoming development cycle.

Inviting large numbers of non-developers who have no prior knowledge or 
experience with Ubuntu or Free Software to anything other than the 
keynote would seem to be unproductive, unsatisfying, and subversive to 
the goals of UDS.

It would be far, far more beneficial to invite policymakers to SCALE or 
other large shows that are focused on consumers and end-users rather 
than to undermine development efforts for Ubuntu 13.10.

If I wanted to risk hurting UDS anyway, I would at least come up with a 
consensus of what UDS "might mean to" California lawmakers before 
starting a letter writing campaign.

I probably wouldn't plan beforehand to shunt most of the questions to 
Canonical, as Canonical is notoriously overburdened as it is.

-- 
Nathan Haines
Ubuntu - http://www.ubuntu.com/