Well hello - my first post to the US list - my thought is - for your reaction - is I wonder how many top-level initiatives are provided by the Ubuntu LoCo groups or Ubuntu online-community at large. Certainly there are the initiatives such as "fix bugs", "write documentation", and the typically technical canon found in all distros. But when it comes to community advocacy, the goal of the LoCo groups, I suppose I expected to find more initiatives in-place, since the LiveCD distribution was so well orchestrated by Canonical. Having information at a top-level about community advocacy would be helpful for all LoCos.
One major factor that made me want to take a close look at participating in the Ubuntu LoCo advocacy efforts was the marked improvement to existing "LUG" teams. I saw how the LoCo teams at least communicated with each other and formed shared repositories of information, in contrast to the stand-alone LUG teams. Now that I have had much exposure to the Ubuntu teams, I am seeing there are not many top-down initiatives where the LoCos are encouraged to pursue specific advocacy projects. It is very much "come up with whatever you want and share your successes". Sharing successes is certainly a one step improvement to the LUG teams, but I think we all know that the challenges faced by one team are shared by all teams. Each LoCo similarly asks around their community to find the same challenges to Ubuntu adoption, then asks around the Ubuntu groups for the solutions others have found effective. What would be more effective is a list of challenges all LoCos will face: (a) Schools, (b) State and local governments, (c) Home users, (d) Small businesses, (e) Churches, (f) Re-provisioned used computers, (g) Retirement homes, (h) Libraries / Internet cafes, etc. Resources, from DIY Marketing and Screencasts for example, could be mentioned in the same space. Additionally, LoCos could be informed about timely, nationwide initiatives that could be beneficial to their advocacy efforts, rather than having each hunt for those resources on their own. Examples of timely initiatives would be the NO OOXML program from the FSF or the nation-wide sale of the $200 gOS PC from Walmart. An effort to inform all LoCos of the present challenges they face would be effective for enabling the teams to take action on those challenges. I am somewhat hopeful someone will correct me and inform me of the existing initiatives that I was unable to unearth in the Ubuntu online-communities. Otherwise, I leave it as an open idea to consider. Happy holiday and best of fortunes with your own LoCo initiatives, Matthew Craig -- Ubuntu-us mailing list [email protected] Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us
