On Wed, 2010-09-22 at 17:26 +0200, Jos Poortvliet wrote:
On Wednesday 22 September 2010 16:20:56 Michael Loeffler wrote:
Moin, On Wednesday 22 September 2010 13:52:21 Jos Poortvliet wrote:
Hi all,
In december, FOSS.in will happen. In Januari there is LinuxCon Australia. I can most likely go to only one of these two events. India: >1 billion inhabitants Australia > 21 million inhabitants
Maybe that gives a hint. This combined with the number of ambassadors we have on the ambassador list [1] for both countries is for me a clear sign to go to India. Additional what I heard about FOSS.in the last years was very positive - though I never visited it myself.
On the other hand, Australia gets visitors from New Sealand, which is very much an upcoming open source developer country. India, on the other hand, has a very hard time motivating students to work on FOSS in their free time and most of the 'ambassadors' seem inactive.
Moreover, FOSS.in won't be what it used to be this year due to organisational problems (will be mostly a hackfest, few talks) while linuxcon Au has quite a few high-profile speakers and thus counts more like a 'quality event'.
Just giving some balance ;-)
Anyone has more arguments?
Best M
[1] http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Ambassadors_list
So tell me, what do you think, where would you go, a visit to what conference would have the most impact and help openSUSE the most? This ain't only about me giving a talk or not - it is also about what local openSUSE ambassadors are there, what they organize etcetera. So do you have any plans for either of these conferences? Or is there another conference in December or Januari that you think I should be going to?
Cheers, Jos
All I can do is add more ambiguity here :-) In the case of India, I consider India to be very fertile ground for developing stronger relationships with potential contributors in India. Myself, I'm exploring a visit there for A11y in March. (Unsure at the moment.) I don't recall an official visit by openSUSE/Novell to India in recent times. A visit to Foss.in during what could be considered their darkest hours would surely give a strong psychological boost to the community there that we believe in them and want to include them. My personal feeling is that India, by virtue of its timezone, often gets marginalized in the online community and we need to recognize and find ways to build up there. So, the potential rewards are great. On the other hand, in AU, I don't think the rewards would be as great, but the negative impact could be great. It's a well-established event with many people from diverse FOSS backgrounds. Our presence wouldn't be extremely noticed. But our lack of presence would be VERY noticed. The other day, a friend informed me she was hearing at Oracle Open World in San Francisco on the floor a lot of talk that "SUSE is now obsolete and not relevant anymore." We both know this isn't true, but that's an impression we must work to eliminate. Not being present at a major and well-attended event in AU would only further boost that myth. And we don't want to do that. Ultimately, traveling to these wonderful and far-away places should not be just to talk but to make an effort to gather up the existing openSUSE community in those areas and give them a good boost as well. It motivates our openSUSE community to know that someone came to their region because we care. And in my opinion, that's the best return on investment. My only feeling at this time.is that if its a question of timing for you, Jos, consider the possibility that we could send some other official representative of openSUSE to the event you're not going to. End of thoughts, Bryen M Yunashko openSUSE Marketing Team lead -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org