<div class="gmail_quote">For a while now, i've been thinking about the possibility of ending our Ubuntu-centricity. The community is Ubuntu's greatest strength, yet the community isn't being listened to. More importantly though, i think it is a huge disservice to the greater Free Software (aka Open Source) ecosystem to have one of the strongest global network of advocates to be banded around one distribution. I'd like to propose that we become a general Free Software team, and recommend that the rest of the LoCo's do the same. <div>
<br></div><div>I can't even think of any pros to being an Ubuntu-only team. Having one OS to promote may make certain advocacy easier, but there's no reason why a general team couldn't make the decision to primarily support Ubuntu in most cases. As an official LoCo, we get freebies from Canonical, but i don't think this is a very big deal. We can make our own CDs and i'm sure if we were doing worthy projects, Canonical would still be willing to provide us with CDs, as it would be in their interest. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Now, a few of the cons: </div><div><ul><li>Lack of community input for major decisions and arrogance among those in charge</li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse; ">Lack of support for educational events, and it's not hard to see why since Canonical may endanger their own educational services revenue if they helped out more.</span></li>
<li>Alienate the many many non-Ubuntu members of the Free Software community</li>
<li>Being exclusive to Ubuntu makes it hard to reach out to a wider audience of people with varying levels of interest from beginners to hardcore computer people</li><li>We're doing a disservice to the rest of the community by only acknowledging one free desktop OS</li>
</ul><div>I think what we are united around, more so than an OS which, to be frank, i don't feel any loyalty towards, is ideals. Yes, i'm sure at least one person is thinking that they just care about what tools work, but let's not forget to thank the ideals that made these better tools possible. I think most of us imagine a world where these ideals are universal, and see an incredible amount of potential in that. </div>
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<div><br></div><div>If this idea is well-received, we could either just do our own thing or use <a href="http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Massachusetts" target="_blank">LibrePlanet</a> which is a network that already exists and would be easy to move to. I understand some people have some badly tainted perceptions of the FSF, but i would have no problem being a part of their extended network. Either way, the more i think about it, the more i do think it is appropriate for LoCo's to abandon their exclusive-to-Ubuntu nature. </div>
<div><div><br></div><div>I'm sure you can think of other good reasons as well. We would be giving up our Ubuntu exclusivity, but not abandoning Ubuntu. It seems this could make our job easier, benefit the greater FLOSS community, and still have no significant disadvantage for Ubuntu. </div>
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<div><br></div><div>Thoughts? </div></div><br>-- <br>.danny<br><br>☮♥Ⓐ - <a href="http://www.google.com/profiles/danny.piccirillo">http://www.google.com/profiles/danny.piccirillo</a><br>Every (in)decision matters. <br>