Re: [Linux-aus] Request for Grant from Linux Australia for Ubertweak

[Pia Waugh <greebo@pipka.org>]

Hi Tim,

<quote who="Tim Ansell">

> This all sound brilliant. The stuff on website all looks very
> interesting. I definitely wish that when I was at your target age
> something like this was available to me. A huge amount of contributions
> to FOSS is by young adults.

Agree. It sounds great :)

> I have to admit that as a non-Christian this makes me a little uneasy. 
> I thank you for being open enough to clearly mention in the proposal
> that you are a Christan camp.

I personally feel that seeing this as a Christian camp that also happens to
teach FOSS, that if LA were to support them to do the FOSS bit specifically,
then that could be acceptable. I mean we support all kinds of groups to do
great things, and not supporting this because it also happens to be a
religious event (and explicitly mentioned, which means the people attending
are wanting to attend a Christian event) seems a great waste.

I feel the other activities of the camp are not a reason to not support this
grant. I would however like to see a broader benefit to our community out of
a grant to support it. For instance, most grants have some knock on benefit
to our broader community, be it access to slides, video, documentation, code
or whatever. What if LA supported the event with the expectation that there
was some posters, or logos, or code developed that comes back to the
community? Or what if the attendees were educated about the community, and
hopefully then we (the community) could get more new participation in FOSS?
I think that LA supporting the FOSS bits is acceptable, and I agree that LA
should never endorse a specific religion. We don't endorse specific
companies or distributions for similar reasons.

These are my personal views and not representative of the LA ctte which is
waiting for community feedback on this to make a decision.

This is still open for discussion by the community. What do others think?

Cheers,
Pia

PS - I am not a Christian either :)

-- 
Linux Australia                                         http://linux.org.au/
 
   "The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet." - William
                                   Gibson