Thanks Sebastian (and Sridhar) for your replies - certainly some good suggestions for work at the individual level - and I have done (or am doing) several of the things on your list. Sridar's project sounds like a great project too and I have also spoken with others off list about projects.
I guess I am looking for something collective to put some time into out of work hours and I've been given some ideas - but nothing that is actually up and running. If any Canberra-based members want to chat about trying a few real-world promotional ideas - maybe an installfest or a public talk and demonstration,I'd be happy to be involved. I'm alleged to have more front that Myers, so I can MC anything or deal with crowds (Not teenagers though. I hate teenagers). A couple of things I've been thinking about (but couldn't bring off alone): When I first started using Linux a couple of years ago, I scoured the adult education course material for some sort of evening course but found nothing on offer. (I did do a flyfishing course instead and it was great!). Maybe we can lobby the relevant colleges and education bodies to get something started? The other idea I had was to investigate whether there where any propeller heads (sorry, "technically proficient people") who would want to volunteer their Linux skills for charities or not-for-profit groups wanting to move to FOSS. We could set up some sort of match-making web site and get the word out via mail and demonstrations. There are so many ex-government computers being turned over right now (thanks, I suspect, to Vista) that you can pick up a P4 3.0Ghz with 512Mb or 1Gb of RAM a 80Gb HDD and a DVD writer for around $200. Surely some worthy cause could turn a few of those, plus Ubuntu, into a pretty good office. But where would they get the skills and advice? At least we could generate a few Australian case studies (which are sorely lacking right now). I have sort of been further inspired after finding a group (in the US) that seems to be really pushing the FOSS benefits to community groups - check out http://www.nosi.net/ Paul Sebastian Spiess wrote: > > Hi Paul, > > when I first read you post I thought, hey this guy is looking into > some serious work. :-) Now some days later I spend some thought on you > post. > > Besides the many people who answer post on forums and mailing list > which target mainly tech issues there are many things to do. As > linux/Ubuntu is a tech thing you will always end up with some kind of > involvement into tech topics but I am sure you are aware of this already. > > You are looking for a active community project? I think there are > active projects on every corner but many are small and they might be > hard to find at first. In many occasions this could mean not working > directly "with" Ubuntu. > > So here are some things I came up with. > - translation > - documentation / wiki > - artwork > - publicity > - promote FOSS/ODF etc to friends, family, local politician as long as > it needs to convince them (IMHO this is one of the hardest ones) > - educate people > - software reviews > - test hardware and write reports/how-tos > - donate to projects > - raise funds > - help Sridhar :-) > > and there is the huge field of bug/beta/alpha testing which is of > course a tech thing. > > It could even be that the local LUG is just missing the active moment > you bring along to do bigger things. > > just my 2 ct. > > Sebastian > -- ubuntu-au mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
