[PLUG] Coordination and Planning

[Miller, Jeremy]

Hi.  New guy here that's finally decided which direction to drive to get to
a LUG.  (North to Portland or South to Corvallis, from Salem.  I'm sort of
stuck in the middle, you see. :)



Anyway, most definitely agreed.  That's a lot of machines, and a ton of
work.  The willy-nilly approach would probably be more destructive than
anything else.

They're not asking for help yet, like you say.  But I wonder if they would
ask for help unless they see some sort of organization taking place.  (For
fear of the aforementioned "willy-nilly" switch.)  If nothing else (even if
they don't want/need help, it would interesting to see some sort of "big
project" plan put together.  For this and/or future cases.  Whenever a
"volunteer work force" may be called for.

Or perhaps it exists and I just haven't seen it yet. :)  (Smack me down, if
so.)


As far as this instance (the schools) they might be able to use some help
even if it isn't a big linux project.  If they are still considering doing
their own audit (as someone mentioned) maybe they could still use help with
that.

One last thing... do they have a volunteer coordinator of any kind?  If any
of the schools do, they should probably get their head together with their
IT people if any plan for a bunch of volunteers to come in gets started.
There may (or may not) be procedures in place for that already.


I'm pretty busy, but I want to throw my hat in the ring as wanting to help.
Is there a sign up sheet?  :)


---------------------------------------
Jeremy Miller - jmiller at ci.albany.or.us
City of Albany/Albany Public Library
---------------------------------------


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dylan Reinhardt [mailto:dylan at dylanreinhardt.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 9:05 AM
> To: plug at lists.pdxlinux.org
> Subject: [PLUG] Coordination and Planning
> 
> 
> Normally, a "do what you want" approach seems to produce good 
> results in
> Open Source / Free Software projects.
> 
> But we aren't tweaking a kernel here.  Responding to 
> Microsoft's threat
> will require coordination, a plan, and most of all *leadership*.
> 
> That's because we're talking about existing organizations 
> with existing
> plans and resources already deployed.  Having a bunch of 
> volunteers descend
> on schools and upgrade computers willy-nilly probably won't 
> be very helpful
> unless it's part of a robust plan.  Managing 25K 
> installations at dozens
> of locations doesn't just happen.
> 
> I'm willing to give significant time and what skills I have.  
> So are many
> people here... but I don't hear anyone from the schools 
> asking for our help
> just yet.
> 
> Absent that request, I would suggest that we turn our energy 
> toward things
> like drawing attention to the issue.  MS stands to gain a few 
> million dollars
> by shaking down schools?  I bet we could cost them at least 
> that much in
> bad publicity if we put our heads together.
> 
> In many ways, it's not really about Portland Public Schools 
> at all.  They
> are in a really tight spot here, but it's not as though they 
> aren't already
> well aware of how to deploy Linux.  The larger audience for 
> our message
> are schools, organizations and businesses who think that they 
> can afford
> Windoze b/c they are just too small or unprofitable for MS to 
> bother with
> license enforcement.  Some of these organizations might hear 
> this story
> and realize that they want to start working on a migration plan ASAP.
> 
> As I said, I would pitch in and help PPS at the drop of a 
> hat... but only
> if they want my help.  In the mean time, I wonder if we 
> shouldn't be focusing
> our energy and outrage at the larger issues this incident represents.
> 
> My $0.02...
> 
> Dylan
> 
> 
> 
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