On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 at 09:32, Paul Garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Happy Easter all. > > I have been scouring the web for active community projects in Australia > - and in Canberra specifically - with a view to getting involved or > contributing in some way. I'm not a techie but probably have some > skills/time/money to donate. I was attracted to the ubuntu-au projects > listed on the loco wiki page > (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AustralianTeam/Projects) but the information > there is a bit old and it actually gives the impression of not much > actually happening (the last update was in October 2006). And the web > presence of my local LUG hardly creates an impression of activity beyond > eating pizza and generally "getting together" in a fairly disorganised, > undergrad-type way. As I already have a family, a social life and a > job, I was looking for something else. As a 30 year veteran of the > public service, I'm not really interested in attending admin meetings > any more - in person or on-line. > > I know that people are active here on this mailing list and on the > Ubuntu forums, but beyond the support offered for technical problems and > the FOSS Open Day, (and the obligatory periodic rants about MS) is > anyone still actively promoting uptake of Ubuntu and FOSS in Australia? > Have I missed something? Is there an active community out there > somewhere doing something? > > This is not meant to be a criticism of ubuntu-au. Far from it. I'm > just curious about the (apparent) lack of engagement through outreach > projects and am wondering where the action is.
Speaking for myself, I am very active in Sydney LUG (SLUG), which is an incorporated organisation with a constitution, AGM and structured meetings (with talks) every month. Inter alia, I'm currently gearing up for the Education Expo[0], where I'll be running the Linux Australia stand. We do have people involved in advocacy and events organisation, but unfortunately we don't have enough. To cite evidence, LA doesn't have a CeBIT stand this year, which makes me sad as I ran the one last year. Hackers/sysadmins generally don't take to such things. Less technical people should be stepping forwards to fill the void to help take care of organisational/advocacy matters. I gave up on real coding some time ago, realising that my efforts were better spent on facilitating and growing the community. Without a real community to bind the disparate FOSS fiefdoms and to invite and welcome newcomers, FOSS will have a hard time growing. This is a problem. I've been trying to think of solutions, but the only real one is to encourage people to get involved at an organisational/executive level as much as possible. [0] http://www.edexpo.info/ -- "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past" - George Orwell
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
-- ubuntu-au mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
