[ubuntu-us] [ubuntu-marketing] Idea: A How to Lobby Guide

[steve hatherley]

>to	US LoCo Teams <ubuntu-us at lists.ubuntu.com>,
>date	Jan 30, 2008 12:46 PM
>subject	Re: [ubuntu-us] Idea: A How to Lobby Guide
>mailing list	ubuntu-us.lists.ubuntu.com Filter messages from this mailing list
>	
>I concur, we definitely need this documentation. We have large bodies
>of groups who are capable of political action for free(open) file
>formats, which is a top priority to close Bug #1. As a member of the
>DC LoCo Team, I would be very interested in seeing the documentation
>you guys come up with ...
>
>Thanks for the effort!
>
> -- Nick

On Jan 30, 2008 12:50 PM, M. Fioretti <mfioretti at nexaima.net> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 23:33:51 PM -0500, Danny Piccirillo wrote:
>
> > How about we create a guide for people/teams to lobby their local
> > governments for open formats, free software, and Ubuntu adoption?
>
> I am always interested to link to such guides from the resources
> section of Digifreedom.net, please keep me posted even off list.
>
> Just a few notes:
>
> - speaking of free formats, there already is something, ideas at
>   least, at http://opendocumentfellowship.com
>
> - lobbying for open formats is always safe and 100% OK, if nothing
>   else because even proprietary sw vendors can adopt them and this
>   just destroys (if done well) any accusation or political pressure
>   they may try based on "communism", personal attacks, etc... while
>   removing the only real weapons they have to keep their monopolies
>
> - lobbying for free software... of course it's great, but it must be
>   done with balance. "Use Only FOSS tomorrow" or anything similar is
>   simply not realistic and usually backfires.
>
> - lobbying Ubuntu adoption... You actually mean lobbying a government
>   to adopt ONE specific sw "product" instead of all other ones??? If
>   yes, this wouldn't fly, I'm afraid. How would it be different
>   (perception-wise, of course) than lobbying for Windows Vista? And
>   why Ubuntu and not Fedora, OpenSuse, Mandrake, you name it?
>   Convincing governments to adopt and mandate by law really fair
>   *practices*, without specifying "product names", is a different
>   thing, of course. Far, far easier to do.
>
> A guide that doesn't _promote_ at all any distro above any other has
> many more possibilities to succeed or at least be widely adopted, IMO.
>
>         Marco
> --
> Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how
> software is used *around* you:            http://digifreedom.net/node/84
>
> --
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>

I also agree that promoting just one distribution over any other would
not work, although I do think that what would be useful is to include
a list of places where the Government has already adopted FOSS, what
they're using it for, and what software they're using. I think it may
help our cause because it will make the politicians think twice before
brushing us off as some obscure group of internet nerds.

This link may be helpful:
http://www.iosn.net/government

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe that one of the
local governing bodies in Germany are in the process of switching
their office systems over to a custom variant of SuSe ( I think )...
AH! Here's a link:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/17/HNgermanlinux_1.html