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

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.