W. Wayne Liauh wrote:
Hi Warren-
Sorry that I have not been visiting LUAU for quite some time. About
quitting school, even for just one semester, I really think you should
give it very careful thoughts. I remember Michael Dell told us (at
Exxon) exactly the same thing, that he was going to quit University of
Texas for just one semester. But he never returned to school. There
are, of course, big differences between Dell and yourself. Michael Dell
had a very definitive goal and eventually became a multi-billionaire.
Working on Linux (ha!), particularly on the kind of "pro bono" projects
that you mentioned, will get you nowhere. Between my wife and I, we are
probably one of the most educated pairs on earth (I have BS, MS, PhD in
chemical engineering and JD, and my wife has BS, MS in electrical
engineering and MD). I always hated schools. And because I hated
schools, may goal had always been to study as hard as possible while in
school so that I could get the degree and get out of school as quickly
as possible.
I understand your concern but don't worry about me, I have every
intention of continuing school. Next semester I will be part-time with
maybe 3-6 credits, 3 will be for ICS499 independent study projects.
Here's my project:
http://videl.ics.hawaii.edu/~warren/fedora.html
It needs updating because a lot more ideas have been discussed on the
Fedora mailing lists since this day, but this is the basic idea:
Debian-like community developed add-on software for Red Hat, using
apt-get. When this goal is reached, NOBODY should go through manual
installation of 99% of the software they use.
(Eventaully Fedora packages will be crafted to be more vendor neutral,
perhaps with trees for compatibility with Mandrake, SuSE, PLD, Conectiva
and other RPM based distributions.)
The technology world, however, represents a very different story. If
you really plan to take one semester off, you should try to formulate a
much grander goal--more particularly, trying to work on something that
has a much broader reach and more permanent impact. For example,
instead of working on the project(s) yourself, perhaps you should think
about the possibility of working on a "handbook" (or "cookbook"), so
others can do the dirty work for you. That's how technology and
experience can best propagate and grow local roots. By doing this, you
and our other LUAU "guys" (gender-neutral) will acquire a strong
leadership, and Hawaii will produce an army of willing and able Linux
advocates.
As I mentioned earlier, I will be more than happy to sponsor you
project, if you can articulate its worthy goals and demonstrate its
long-term self-sustainability (the key word is "self"). Hawaii is a
very difficult place to do business, and I have drastically cut down my
expenses, including moving my office to my basement, to compensate for
my drastically reduced revenue. However, I believe I will still be able
to absorb at least part of the hardware cost to develop a "Linux lab".
In order to promote Linux in Hawaii, I really believe we should shelf
the idea of using used PCs at least for a while. My idea is to build a
number of powerful (and cheap) new LInux and Windows PCs networked
together, which can be duplicated by business concerns. One of those
PCs should be a new Athlon-64 machine. :-)
Fedora itself is an ambitious project, but it only serves to make all of
our jobs easier as we approach the even tougher problems. Everything we
do from this point on will be quicker and easier simply because software
installation is automated and painless. With all of this time saved, we
can devote far more time to:
1) Workshops, meetings, conferences, expos
2) Education outreach (LTSP in schools, mentorship, etc.)
3) Business community education
My plan for the next semester includes the following in order of priority:
1) Build Mid-Pac into a Linux technology showcase for the state of
Hawaii, especially with the new $10 million dollar
Math/Science/Technology complex opening Fall 2003.
2) Build the Fedora community in order to make Linux software management
quicker and easier for everyone. Newbies no longer need to learn
tarball compilation until much later.
3) Education and Government advocacy, demonstrations, conferences, etc.
4) Production of advocacy short videos
Warren
