#opensuse-in Meeting on Saturday 9/11/2010 (summary)
#opensuse-in Meeting: Agenda : 1) Focus on openSUSE in india (10mins) 2) Hits and Drawbacks (10mins) 3) Plans, Measures for new wave of contributors and users (30 mins) 4) Conclusion (10 mins) Started on Saturday 9/11/2010 8:58:48 PM Discussed on what’s new in openSUSE, activities done, suggestions, feedbacks, etc.:- Discussed on the needs, drawbacks, plans, etc.:- Concluded the meeting at 11:12PM summary: There is a need for new contributors /users for openSUSE in India. Currently we are having no strong community. We have hurdles like to convince people to organize meetings and there is a need to create awareness for Linux at school level not the thing that someone refuses openSUSE. For this to happen there is a need to choose a best guy, at the best time using the best word to be successful at any strategy. Next begin the activities such as forming of group, organizing some talks, meetings, conferences, grabbing new users, contributors, helping the community ,writing articles, actively participating in forums, answering questions in the mailing list, peers, beginners, etc.:- organizing FOSS events will be awesome at the school level for the benefit of the students and the teachers make openSUSE programs more closed with educational vertical market. for these contributions, the user can be granted the membership privileges. Until then, not give a title unless someone has already done work - proven they are.
Sorry for not attending. Some IP conflict massage kept popping up on Chatzilla.
From what I could gather from the session transcript, my 2 ¢.
The 'campus ambassador' idea, although it has been implemented elsewhere, has met limited success. Case in point : SUN. If anyone is really interested, just be an ambassador. The process is pretty open and streamlined. 31 ambassadors in India seems overly optimistic. AJ had proposed a cleanup. Anything on the charts? This applies to the entire list. Even the lone Hong Kong guy on it never replied when I mailed him to propose some collaborative effort. I personally prefer a more or less flat organisation. Heirarchies create ego clashes, misuse of authority, dismissive behaviour with newbies and 'low grade participants', etc. Starting at schools is a very welcome idea. I had tried it personally, but hit some roadblocks. Namely, lack of motivation in teachers, incompatibilty and inflexibility of school schedules and . Maybe I should have tried harder. However, that aside, if schoolboys and girls get a taste of first blood, and start believing in the value of FOSS, both in terms of quality and philosophy, we hit first on the count in which proprietary systems beat us, they condition impressionable minds into thinking of them as the only option. This results in the idea that Linux is only for CS/IT students and pros. If we could get them to believe in us, that could very well change. This job offer part I could not quite comprehend. That is not how FOSS works afaik. Country specific strategies may work, I don't know. Never operated on that scale. Spending on DVDs needs reimbursement in countries like India, whenever possible. Most people there start at college level. Without cost recovery, their reach is severely crippled, to say the least. I faced it myself at a point. There is only so much one can do without cash support, especially applicable at student level. "the 'official' cd's look better" for sure. No self made labels, etc can match the pro look they have. The preference for other distros, primarily f & U is clearly visible in India. A primary reason is more Indian contributors in those. Another is corporate backing. Also, for F, the Pune office of RH has this huge team working full-time on it, paid! That helps too. Footnote : Anybody looking toward the end of promoting oS in India or elsewhere, if you need help that I can provide. please drop a mail. Will try my best. Please remember though that my coding is nothing to write home about. Writing skills more respectable. P.S. Sorry for the long mail :) Adios ~kknundy -- Koushik Kumar Nundy http://kknundy.blogspot.com http://thinkbiosoln.com http://en.opensuse.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org
participants (2)
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Koushik Kumar Nundy
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Ravindra Aditya