[Linux-aus] Organizing an Australian Open Source Roadshow?

[Paul Shirren]

I am with Arjen on this.

LA is vitally important as is AUUG. But a third group, with the support 
of LA, AUUG and industry concentrating purely on pushing OSS to 
business/goverment is probably due. Imagine it as an extension of the 
OSG conf co-operation mixed with a bit of OSV style industry involvement 
but bigger.

The fact is LA, and AUUG are too good at what they do to risk diluting 
them. I don't want linux.conf.au to turn into a trade show.

I think we need LA, AUUG, SAGE?, ACS?, OSV, SLPWA, OSBNSA and a stack of 
industry leaders to get together and contribute some resources.

The Open Source Roadshow is a great idea. It could be managed by a 
committee on behalf of LA as are the confs. But why not broaden the base 
a bit? In the end it is about creating worthwhile jobs for Australian 
techs so why not get more people involved that just LA.

What I think we need is a body thats day to day runnings are independant 
and totally focussed on creating lots of good jobs for us by raising OSS 
awareness. They should work very closely with the existing community 
focussed groups and industry, but they need to be independent so they 
can concentrate on the task.

With respect to DSL the One Ring analogy is very wrong, because there 
should not be any heirachy involved. If anything the new org should be 
answerable to its members which should include AUUG and LA IMO (not on 
day to day stuff, but certainly on overall direction)

And with respect to Micheal, perhaps we do need another voice. But an 
entirely different one. One that only speaks non-technical, business 
speak. Having another group duplicating LA or AUUG would be silly. 
Perhaps having AUUG and LA duplicating LA and AUUG is a bit silly 
sometimes but that is another matter.

Arjen Lentz wrote:
> Hi Jeff, Michael,
> 
> On Thu, 2004-01-29 at 11:44, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> 
>>>>Very soon, a national organisation [think One Ring to Rule Them All] is
>>>>coming about with business members from all over Australia. Although I
>>>>can't talk for them, this type of thing sounds like something that we
>>>>would certainly consider very seriously.
>>>
>>>Just what we need - *another* organisation in the FOSS space in Australia
>>>trying to be the voice to the outside world! :-(
>>>
>>>"You are in a maze of twisty organisations, all alike".
> 
> 
> David may need to read up on his Lord of the Rings, the analogy is all
> wrong ;-)
> See below.
> 
> 
> 
>>Mmmm. I really hope that such a group would be part of, or at the very
>>least, strongly affiliated with Linux Australia. Rather than being
>>entirely separate, it could simply be another face of the same
>>organisation (and a thriving part of the general community that Linux
>>Australia represents).
>>A largely independent sub-committee of Linux Australia would be an
>>excellent venue for this.
> 
> 
> It is intended that the new industry org will complement, rather than
> compete with, existing organisations such as Linux Australia and AUUG.
> And indeed there should be very close cooperation. The group working on
> it is keeping LA committee members informed, and same goes for AUUG.
> 
> While I like your other idea in principle, I'm not certain that that can
> be done at this point. The reasons for this would probably go along
> similar lines to the "LA+AUUG merger" discussion. While there is no
> fundamental disagreement, there is a slightly different focus (can be
> dealt with), but more importantly (to the people talking about it!) a
> different feeling. And that's way more tricky.
> 
> Given that situation, I'd rather see an extra organisation that works
> (very) closely with the others, rather than integrating and finding that
> many of the target group don't want to be part of it. That would be a
> loss to the cause.
> 
> Regards,
> Arjen.