[Linux-aus] Re: National Open Source Industry Cluster

[Leon Brooks <leon@cyberknights.com.au>]

Good morning, Con!

I forwarded a copy of your message to the SLPWA members list as per your 
request, and they are here CC'ed. You will need to join to post there, 
or rely on the moderator's punctuality and goodwill; it's MajorDomo at 
the moment but might be MailMan later.

I don't know that we need to cross-post *everything* to all lists, I 
feel inclined to run the conversation between Committees and only crowd 
the other lists with the interesting details and/or regular updates.

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 09:37, Con Zymaris wrote:
> also, perhaps we might use opensource.org.au as the platform for
> such a group. Thoughts?

LA would *probably* be in that (my personal hatless opinion, not ex 
cathedra on behalf of LA or anything), provided you kept prominent 
links to LA, AUUG and os.o on the front page. Our "urgentest" purposes 
in acquiring the domain at the time was to keep it out of `enemy' hands 
and to secure an appropriate common ground for LA and AUUG. Having an 
independent purpose for it coincides with my ideas about what it should 
be doing.

SLPWA matches your specs except for two items, and both of those choices 
were taken deliberately.

The items in question are `4)' from the first list and '3)' from the 
second.

<hat label="SLPWA-OCM">
We chose other than '4)' - Act as a national co-ordinator - Because 
SLPWA expressly decided to aim to be a State level organisation (a 
matter of reach, but if not that then because each State's procurement 
operates differently and SLPWA's focus is business).

We chose other than the second '3)' - (not) Be Linux-specific - because 
Linux is a more widely recognised totem for open source in action than 
open source itself is, and because in practice each of our businesses 
leans heavily on Linux.

We have discovered through experience with PLUG that this move is 
reasonably well understood by *BSD people (modulo one zealot whom I can 
think of).
</hat>

So what would you call such an org? Simply `Open Source Australia' 
(OSA)? Or something more interesting like `Australian Open Source in 
Science, Industry and Education' (AOSSIE) and let the `Politics' remain 
implied)?

Cheers; Leon

-- 
http://cyberknights.com.au/     Modern tools; traditional dedication
http://plug.linux.org.au/       Committee Member, Perth Linux User Group
http://slpwa.asn.au/            Committee Member, Linux Professionals WA
http://linux.org.au/            Committee Member, Linux Australia