[From long-time lurker, infrequent poster:] A posting on kuro5hin has triggered various fevered imaginings in my unstable mind: http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory&sid=2001/2/21/19441/2905 It's a followup story on Spindl3top, the GNU co-operative in Cambridge, Mass. A comment I posted (http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=comments&sid=2001/2/21/19441/2905&cid=6#6), really just a shameless plug for my union (Join the IWW! It's great!), got me wondering... Could we not have a GNU co-operative in Sydney? It so happens that I'm involved in a couple of things that could act as a springboard to get this going. The way I see it is slightly different to the setup at Spindl3top. Basically if the business is structured as a worker-run co-op, we avoid a lot of the overheads involved in a for-profit business (as well as generating a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling among subversives like me). Unlike Spindl3top, who can count on enough people affording shiny new hardware for their free software systems, we can source the hardware from the tons of pentiums corporations are now flinging out, and subsequently find a lot more people who can afford our systems and associated services. The big uncertainty is are enough people interested in getting involved? So if you're unemployed, a student needing real-world experience, burnt out, or otherwise fed up, and (crucially) don't need wheelbarrows full of cash eash week to survive, please read the K5 posting for more details and get back to me if you're interested. Here's hoping I've caught some people during a particularly bad day at the office. Matthew. --------------------------------- Industrial Workers of the World ----- (x350 253 / 00-1502) ------ ---- Join the One Big Union! ---- ------ http://www.iww.org ------- --------------------------------- Software should not have owners ------ http://www.gnu.org ------- ----- Use Debian GNU/Linux ------ ----- http://www.debian.org ----- --------------------------------- -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
