POSSUG News
November 08, 2004
This is a quick overview of the notes from POSSUG (PEI Open Source Software Users Group) meeting November 4th/ 2004.
If you have anything to add, please do, or email me at iain(at)engtech.ca.
This was our second meeting of POSSUG. It was held at UPEI Cass science building, and was well attended. We had 16 people at last count, and 3 people had emailed me their regrets. No doubt there were others that couldn't come, but didn't email me. (Not that I need an email, it's just nice to know what kind of numbers we're attracting.)
(For the serach engines: POSSUG, PLUG/OSS, PEI, Linux, LUG, PLUG, Users group, RedHat, Fedora, BSD, os x, Debian, Suse, uClinux.)
Being only our second meeting, the agenda was basically "what do we want POSSUG to do". A survey around the room yielded various results, but I think they all seem compatible goals. Some goals, wishes, comments that were expressed:
(This is all paraphrased - let me know if you think I got it wrong)
"I'd like to be able to get help for things that bug me about my system, like how to configure a pluggable external HDD so that it works."
"I just want to be able to know who's around, and who i can ask for advice."
"want to see who is interested. It would be good if people could present ideas. Like - 'Here's a new thing that no-one has heard of, here's why it's great."
"I'd just like to see more open source on PEI"
"talk about some of the myths about open source. 5/100 are gems. "
"Interested in advocacy to government."
"Interested in knowing what government is ALREADY involved in. This helps local small business owners take OSS seriously."
"Here are UPEI - Openoffice - no lab manual for it at UPEI but interested indeveloping one. The manual itself will be Opensourced."
Talked about Elearning software - moodle.
"Great tools, but may be too much for simpler teaching.
Province already does quite a bit in OSS. Many of the servers are Linux/Apache. There are a few other OSS items. We might be able to get a list or post, or maybe not. Depends on the department. and their willingness to make this public. Liability?
Generally like the idea of advocacy - changing attitudes and awareness. Support, quality.
It was noted that saying it's free is not the issue - Not the best approach. Cost is not always the deciding factor. Support is/can be.
maybe POSSUG can be seen/perceived to provide some of that support mechanism.
Just good to Network - see what are people doing.
Number of people are available for consulting, looking for subcontractors etc...
Interested in Group Profiles.. Announce our presence to peers.
Talked about the upcoming launch of the ITAP OSS website, and that we can use this as our home. Some concern raised about not wanting to "Pay to join a club. not necessarily an ITAP thing."
Iain suggested that he didn't think this was the idea behind the website, and that ITAP was genuinely interested in supporting and helping OSS in the province. Will Pate spoke to this in more detail, and answered some questions about the capability to email posts if individuals didn't like blog based communications.
The launch is on Monday the 15th, and we'll try using it then.
It was suggested we might be able to offer a Forum for basic questions. There was concern about free support vs paid support.
Talked about he "Try linux. disk" Install fests etc... no concrete plans at this point, but it's certainly a topic for future meetings.
Social aspects of open source software/ideals.
OSS principles - human genome project. - non software ideals.
Presentations - projects - Guerilla open source software. Community involvement. Art related stuff?
POSSUG may be interested in helping a non-profit organization.
Prof. David Leblanc spoke a bout a project where by they would send computers toCameroonn. These are typically P100's and up, student volunteers to configure. Ship toCameroonn. He was going to post a link to Dr Jean Ambassa, send links... he will go toCameroonn 4 -5 months, set up wifi. etc...
(David already posted links and info to the mailing list.)
The thought was POSSUG maybe could help configure. maybe we can help find a location to setup/prep these machines?
----
It was generally agreed that most people could spend from 2 to 20 minutes talking about SOMETHING. So now we are looking for volunteers.
email with stating topic(s), length of time required.
***OR***
Post an email saying I could talk about these three things..what is most interesting to POSSUG people?
****OR***
email indicating something you would like to have covered.
I'll start a separate email thread for this, but some ideas that came up immediately were, talks/presentations on:
- What is FOAF.
- VOIP - Asterix, Skype, Softphones, SIP.
- Creative Commons License.
- PHP training.
- What you like about the distribution you are currently using.
- anything technical
----------
NEW suggested meeting time:
-First Wednesday of every month. That makes the next meeting Dec 1.
Possible new location as the seats in Cass are hard.
Maybe the Faculty lounge would work? Maybe Stratford town hall?
Maybe a restaurant has a good amount of space?
If we move to a new location - we may nee a portable projector?
-END!-
NOTE: Until the ITAP OSS website is runnign, discussion takes place on the mailing list.
http://lists.sysop.ca/mailman/listinfo/possug
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