Make every day InstallFest & SFD, through establishment of a drop-in
workshop facility downtown that is sponsorship, recycling & training
driven. This would build on Dave's OSTC model by adding more public
access to an internet-enabled workstation suite, and donated materials
for learners to build up, use, and own at nominal cost.
From this base turnover, we would work towards paying, professional
training and certification, to meet market demand as the Open Source
Technology Centre tried to (LPI etc.); but one practical, achieveable
step at a time. Ideological excuses for not trying abound, but only
demonstrate impracticality.
> 'Free Software Training House'
(& The Free Software Training Community Trust).
Such an institutional description (partially) licenses us to sell both
very cheap Linux PCs & recycled Macs etc, and expensive *nix corporate
training, as is well known but very poorly supported.
What I am hoping to see is the Geek transformed from User - concerned
primarily with _their_ current faulty script, net connection or software
- into people enabled to contribute regularly to _community_ in all its
senses. I know there will be a minority of List subscribers who
contribute patches upstream, that we all benefit from, to whom we are
all extremely grateful. Yet the great many of us (with myself included
near the bottom of this count) have no tangible way of putting anything
back into the Linux etc community, which is simply a waste of resource &
opportunity.
Future-proofing vs corporate patents looks at least partly (mostly?)
like creating a much bigger public stake in free & open-source software
than we currently have. IMHO the most secure step towards FOSS longevity
will be when we Geeks gain the ability, as a community, to look beyond
our screens at needs other than our individual own. Even if this merely
recognises our collective own.
Much more to say yet,
--
Richard Tindall, InfoHelp Services <http://www.infohelp.co.nz> on:
Ubuntu GNU/Linux 5.10 free OS, 2.6.12-9-686 kernel, GNOME 2.12.1 desktop
OpenOffice.org 1.9.129 suite, Mozilla 1.7.12 browser + Firefox 1.0.7
Thunderbird 1.0.7 email, Gedit 2.12.1 web editor, gFTP 2.0.18 filexfer
