[Osia-discuss] Re: [Linux-aus] MEDIA RELEASE: Open Source Industry Australia - National Body Launched

[jclift at digitaldistribution.com]

Quoting Del <del at babel.com.au>:
<snip>
> It's the reason I haven't felt the need to be involved with
> http://www.oic.org/ and their Linux/Open Source seminar series.
> Apart from the fact that it appeared to be a self-promotion
> exercise on the part of the organisers (who were obviously trying
> to sell something).

Good move.  Keep away from those guys.  They give nothing but the shonky-est of
impressions.

Became aquainted with them when they *spammed* me, asking me to cough up several
grand a year ($3,500p/a from memory) in order to join their group.  Just so I
could be involved in relation to OSS stuff.  Like... "HELLO"?

Gave them the benefit of the doubt (no cash though), asked a few people about
them who responded with "we're not sure about this crowd", and decided to watch
their actions instead of making a snap judgement.

Spoke to them on the phone after a few weeks, explaining interesting areas like
potential matches between the ITIL approach and the structure of OSS
Communities, etc.  Voila, all the people on their mailing list start hearing
about ITIL and how they're going to be doing something with it.

Turns out they were also probing others, as someone senior at somewhere (IBM or
the ISOC maybe?) managed to send something back to their mailing list telling
them he thought they were acting dodgy too.  (that's from memory, the email is
still around somewhere)

Waited a while, then rang them again, advising them to drop the payment
requirement for OSS related people to become involved.  To me it seems like
common sense that this would allow/encourage *recognised* OSS people to be
involved and they'd be able to provide real information to the OIC members
about OSS.

But no.  I was politely told they had spent enough money on OIC over the years
and weren't interested in giving free access to anyone for any reason, and
they'd consider my request at a future point in time.  (A polite "stuff you"
that is).

Anyway, they don't really seem to "get it", and rather seem to be more
interested in extracting funds from anyone they can upon the excuse of
providing benefit on whatever topic looks to be "hot" at the time... but with
no real benefits being apparent.

Oops, that turned into a rant.

<rant off>

:)

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift


> However I'll raise it as an issue when the time comes.
> 
> And I'm unwilling to see OSIA just fold when people have achieved
> the goal of gaining greater Linux acceptance in the marketplace.
> I've felt for a long time that there's needed to be an industry
> body of this type, and NSW doesn't have an equivalent of OSV
> or SLPWA.
> 
> -- 
> Del


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