Hi Paul, and Andrei, thanks for your responses.
Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> E: debian-community.org (though lists are currently hosted on alioth
> as well)
I am not familiar with that site, and I get a connexion timeout trying
to connect to it as a website here.
Paul Wise wrote:
> I would suggest that you start a Free Software User Group, Open Source
> User Group or Linux User Group instead. That would be more inclusive
> since people who don't care about Debian would feel welcome instead of
> excluded.
We already have such groups here - we have a Libre Planet group, a few
disparate linux users group, and a Ubuntu community that mostly imploded
recently when people realised Canonical wasn't a free software community
(duh).
We participate from time to time in those groups, but it's not what
we're looking for. We want to coordinate with each other, as Debian
users. We want to organise BSPs, sprints, and there's a talk of a bid
again for Debconf in Montreal (oh boy - I swear it wasn't me this time
though).
Besides, how is starting a Open Source User Group going to help Debian
specifically? Should we encourage people to start Debian-specific groups
that can support the local community, make local events and promote
Debian in your city?
If not, we need to change this page, at the very least, as it's
encouraging people to start such groups now:
http://wiki.debian.org/LocalGroups
... but I think it would suck if we would add to that page: "please do
not start your own Debian group, instead join existing free software
groups or make one". Maybe it's just that I can't get the wording right.
:P
Besides, I think it's perfectly reasonable for people to get involved in
a group specialised in their technology. I wouldn't go to a Linux User
Group for Python programming help, I would go to that Python group we
have here. Conversely, I wouldn't want people to come to our group for
help with Blender on Windows 7 just because Blender happens to be free
software, although I'd be happy to help them install blender on Debian.
:)
It makes expectations clearer, and I don't think our charter would mark
us as an exclusive "use Debian or f*-off" group. ;)
> It would also resolve this question quite nicely.
>
> [x] E: Host lists on their own server in someones basement
See that's exactly what I'm talking about - *I* can do this, I can host
lists in my "basement" (or my "freedombox", call it what you like), as
I am an experienced sysadmin and developer. But this is not something
anyone can do in their basement. Email is specifically hard to host
behind home connexions - I have been doing it for a while, but it's been
an uphill battle all that time...
But my concern is: what should a non-developer, non-sysadmin do in this
situation? Aren't we telling our users to go away here?
I was under the impression that Debian was trying to be more inclusive
with non-technical contributors, especially with the recent shift of
language from Debian Developer to Debian Member. I sure hope I wasn't
misunderstanding that tendency, and that it can be expanded to cover
more than fair words.
Less talk, more rock.
A.
--
Pour marcher au pas d'une musique militaire, il n'y a pas besoin de
cerveau, une moelle épinière suffit.
- Albert Enstein
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