I've written up a report about the Summer Source camp for the Debian-Nonprofit website. It's already committed to CVS and should be available on the Debian website soon. It reads more like a press-release than a real report so additional information would probably be good from either myself or the other developers who attended. Regards, Mako -- Benj. Mako Hill mako@debian.org http://mako.yukidoke.org/
Debian-NP at Summer Source Conference in Croatia
September 10th, 2003
During the week of August 29th through September 6th, Benjamin Mako
Hill, Micah Anderson, and Enrico Zini represented the Debian project
and the Debian-Nonprofit custom distribution in particular at the
Summer Source camp on the Island of Vis in Croatia.
Billed as a "Software Camp for NGOs," the camp was a venue for
networking around and discussion about free software between
developers (primarily from the NGO world) and the people at NGOs who
use the software (called "implementors" at the camp). With only a few
other members of the more traditional free software community present,
the Debian-NP members had a very busy week explaining both technical
and non-technical aspects of Debian, Free and Open Source software,
and the GNU/Linux operating system.
For Debian-NP, the camp was a useful exercise because it allowed for
networking between Debian-NP members and projects including global and
regional arms of [0]OSI, [1]the LINC Project, and a large number and
variety of NGOs and non-profits involved in using free software or
analyzing the needs of non-profits. As an example, LINC has done a
large amount of work in assessing the needs of NGOs with Free Software
solutions in mind and is currently in the process of preparing a free
software operating system guide for NGOs. Debian-NP was able to talk
to the LINC people about the guide, our potential place in it, and
about Debian in the NGO world more generally.
Many participants at the camp showed interest in Debian in general and
Debian-NP in particular. The three NP-ers walked many participants
through Debian installs using PGI, boot-floppies, and the
Knoppix-based Debian installer. They helped teach participants about
the use and administration of Debian systems, answered questions, and
worked with participants to solve problems. At the end of the camp,
many of the participants returned with Debian installed on their
laptops or with with copies of Debian and Debian derived distributions
and Debian custom distributions. For example, a leader of Schoolnet
Zambia returned home excited about the prospects of rolling out
[2]Skolelinux in Zambian schools.
The only other distribution with developers represented at the camp
was [3]dyne:bolic. Other projects represented were [4]Benetech's
Martus human rights reporting software, [5]APC's Action Apps and many
many more.
The Summer Source was organized by the [6]Amsterdam-based Tactical
Tech Collective and was sponsored by a group or organization's led by
[7]George Soros' Open Society Institute. The camp was hosted by
[8]MAMA, a multimedia collective from Zagreb.
* [9]Conference Website
* [10]Article on the Camp with Images (German)
* [11]Translation of Previous Article (English)
References
Visible links
0. http://www.soros.org/osi.html
1. http://www.lincproject.org/
2. http://www.skolelinux.no/
3. http://dynebolic.org/
4. http://www.martus.org/
5. http://www.apc.org/actionapps/
6. http://www.tacticaltech.org/
7. http://www.soros.org/osi.html
8. http://www.mi2.hr/
9. http://www.tacticaltech.org/summersource/
10. http://de.indymedia.org/2003/09/60872.shtml
11. http://de.indymedia.org/2003/09/61114.shtml
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