<div dir="ltr">Genius post, Anthony. I don't have the bandwidth to provide a response in detail, but +2 to your suggestions here. Other than shaking out the details, I think you have proposed a super-constructive way forward.</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 9 January 2016 at 00:47, Anthony Towns <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:aj@erisian.com.au" target="_blank">aj@erisian.com.au</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">G'day world,<br>
<br>
I thought it might be interesting to write up my idea for an alternative<br>
to rebranding LA as something more like an action plan, rather than just<br>
a concept [0].<br>
<br>
I think the motivation for rebranding LA as "Open Source Australia" or<br>
similar, is that:<br>
<br>
a) "open source" / "free software" ideals broadly are what's interesting<br>
and motivating about Linux, and have always been much closer to the<br>
heart of what "Linux Australia" has been about than just the Linux<br>
kernel or Linux distributions per se<br>
<br>
b) a bunch of people do interesting "open source" things outside of<br>
Linux, such as developing open source software on and for Windows or<br>
Mac, or building open source hardware that doesn't actually run Linux,<br>
or promoting open data that's completely OS agnostic. Those are all<br>
things that fit well together with what "LA" has done in the past,<br>
but since they don't involve "Linux" directly, it can be confusing<br>
to people as to why a group called "Linux Australia" is involved<br>
<br>
Maybe those are the same reason? Maybe someone could phrase them better<br>
too. *shrug* I'm assuming the above is close enough for non-profit work.<br>
<br>
I'm going to add in a couple of other things that I think matter:<br>
<br>
c) changing the organisation name is hard and risky -- there's a whole<br>
legal process to go through, and it's not totally obvious that there's<br>
a name out there which actually works better in every way than the<br>
one we've got anyway. getting a name change wrong would cause a lot<br>
of confusion and be a lot of additional work to fix. ("hard and risky"<br>
doesn't mean we shouldn't do it anyway, of course)<br>
<br>
d) having "LA" do things is generally a bad idea; having subteams<br>
working on projects (like individual LCA or PyCon teams) with LA<br>
just doing administrative support and oversight works much better.<br>
<br>
I don't think the above is controversial; but I think a clear statement<br>
of assumptions makes it easier to resolve disagreements, so the above's<br>
hopefully a clear statement of my assumptions.<br>
<br>
Anyway, add that up and here's what I propose:<br>
<br>
1) we form a new sub-committee focussing on "promotion of open source",<br>
called either "<a href="http://opensource.org.au" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">opensource.org.au</a>" (which LA has control of already,<br>
AIUI), or, purely as an interim measure, "that bunch of rabid<br>
fanatics"<br>
<br>
2) the new sub-committee gets some or all of the following goals<br>
along with a mandate to make them happen:<br>
<br>
a) setup and register a new trademark and trading name for LA<br>
to use, eg "Open Source Australia" (after consulting on wtf that<br>
name should actually be). Once registered, conferences under<br>
the LA umbrella, such as PyCon AU can opt to say they're being<br>
run by "Open Source Australia" rather than "Linux Australia"<br>
if they prefer. if there's no good consensus on a single name,<br>
possibly create two.<br>
<br>
b) resurrect the <a href="http://opensource.org.au" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">opensource.org.au</a> website and make use of it<br>
<br>
c) experiment with membership levels, eg accepting annual donations,<br>
either as nothing more than a donation, or in return for minor<br>
benefits like PDF certificate or an "@<a href="http://opensource.org.au" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">opensource.org.au</a>" forwarding<br>
address. maybe accept corporate memberships?<br>
<br>
d) experiment with providing endorsements like "command line user",<br>
"bug reporter", "scripter", "bug fixer", "kernel hacker",<br>
"hardware hacker", "published documenter" that LA members can<br>
earn to acknowledge and encourage personal development and<br>
contributions to open source. (maybe do the same for corporate<br>
members, like "publishes source code", "complies with the GPL",<br>
"uses open source", "hires hackers and doesn't claim copyright<br>
on what they do in their own time"...)<br>
<br>
e) run/promote small scale hackfests where people learn<br>
open source related skills or contribute to open source projects<br>
<br>
f) track and promote open source alternatives to proprietary<br>
technology, eg "instead of google docs, try ....", documenting<br>
benefits and drawbacks. the "rabid fanatics" subctte and LA<br>
council should both make sure any non-free software they use<br>
is covered by this list, and regularly look into whether the<br>
drawbacks have shrunk to a point where shifting is reasonable;<br>
other sub-cttes should be encouraged to do likewise<br>
<br>
g) write up the effects of existing and proposed legislation and<br>
regulation on open source use/hacking, and make suggestions on<br>
improvements<br>
<br>
h) write up and promote example contracts for hiring open source<br>
people?<br>
<br>
i) ...?<br>
<br>
3) the LA *council* should not do any of the above however! instead<br>
they should just monitor the "rabid fanatics" subctte like they<br>
would any other -- making sure they don't do anything that harms the<br>
organisation, don't spend crazy amounts of money, aren't being totally<br>
dysfunctional, etc. Providing financial support should be similar<br>
to a LUG or LCA, etc -- ability to get reimbursements and dealing<br>
with tax, definitely; but no huge commitment of funds. Likewise for<br>
sysadmin support.<br>
<br>
4) if folks who might otherwise want to contribute content to the LA<br>
website think "promoting open source" matches what they're trying<br>
to do, they should totally be part of the subctte if they want<br>
to. *maybe* that means the "media" subctte ends up getting subsumed;<br>
or becomes more of a "SIG", eg a mailing list/irc channel/wiki where<br>
people doing media work for LCA, PyCon, <a href="http://opensource.org.au" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">opensource.org.au</a>, etc share<br>
advice/tips/leads and retweet each other. (or maybe something else<br>
entirely)<br>
<br>
5) *if* any of the goals work out, that's great! they should be<br>
continued next year. if not, no big deal. depending on how things go,<br>
maybe the subctte should be split -- perhaps you could have separate<br>
subcttes for "running and promoting open source related hackfests" and<br>
"promoting membership and involvement in LA", eg. all of that should<br>
be pretty straightforward under LA's existing subctte policy, I think.<br>
<br>
6) *maybe*, *eventually*, if a bunch of the goals work out, the<br>
<a href="http://opensource.org.au" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">opensource.org.au</a> site becomes much more interesting than the<br>
<a href="http://linux.org.au" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">linux.org.au</a> site, and the "Open Source Australia" (or whatever)<br>
name becomes better known than "Linux Australia", in which case the<br>
council might officially rename the organisation and turn <a href="http://linux.org.au" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">linux.org.au</a><br>
into just a redirect<br>
<br>
7) *maybe* if the approach above works out, and people are<br>
interested in practice, and not just rhetorically, we could create a<br>
"Linux 4 life" subctte (aka "that other bunch of rabid fanatics"?),<br>
with goals along the lines of "encouraging *Linux* use and hacking",<br>
and give them control of the <a href="http://linux.org.au" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">linux.org.au</a> website, with the mandate to<br>
fill it up with interesting content related to use/development/... of<br>
Linux (kernel, distributions, ...) in Australia; again with the same<br>
constraints on the subctte described above in (3)<br>
<br>
I think there's three big benefits of taking this sort of approach:<br>
<br>
- it allows progress despite disagreement about whether the name change<br>
is a good idea, and provides more evidence either way. if it turns<br>
out it was a good idea all along, great, see step (5); if it turns<br>
out it wasn't, it's easy to just disband a subctte and stop renewing<br>
a name registration. and in the meantime none of LA's existing events<br>
has to care about it if they don't want to.<br>
<br>
- it provides a good example of how to do cool stuff in LA outside of<br>
being on the council, other than running a conference; conversely it<br>
gives the council a good example on how to promote forward progress,<br>
while at the same time not committing to doing extra work themselves.<br>
[1]<br>
<br>
- it mostly puts the focus on the fun/cool/rewarding bits (ie, promoting<br>
open source, helping people learn, switching away from non-free stuff,<br>
...) rather than the administrative bits (let's get a new name,<br>
reorganise subcttes, update the constitution, import all our data<br>
into different software that hopefully sucks less, etc)<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
aj<br>
<br>
[0] Historical references:<br>
<br>
- <a href="http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/2013-January/020319.html" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/2013-January/020319.html</a><br>
- <a href="http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/2013-January/020330.html" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/2013-January/020330.html</a><br>
<br>
AFAIK the idea of just setting up a separate trading name never went<br>
any further from that point; corrections appreciated.<br>
<br>
[1] I guess I'm distinguishing the council and the subctte's roles<br>
as something like this: LA's purpose as an organisation is to<br>
"assist groups/individuals who make up the free software and open<br>
source communities in Australia" [2], so the LA council should be<br>
focussed on making it easy for groups to do cool things (like run<br>
conferences). Meanwhile, the "rabit fanatics" is one such group,<br>
and the stuff they do should mostly be "cool things" -- promoting<br>
open source, running hackfests, telling people how great it is that<br>
they learnt how to rebase or bisect in git, eg. I think that's a<br>
useful split to maintain if it ends up with an "Open Source Australia<br>
Council" and an "promoting open source subctte".<br>
<br>
[2] <a href="https://linux.org.au/values" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://linux.org.au/values</a><br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">--------------------------------------------------<br>Tennessee Leeuwenburg<br><a href="http://myownhat.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://myownhat.blogspot.com/</a><br>"Don't believe everything you think"</div>
</div>