LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: David Lloyd <lloy0076@rebel.net.au>
  To  : Michael Davies <michaeld@senet.com.au>
  Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 18:18:43 +1030

Re: Meeting Speaker Proposal

Michael!

> I'm not very interested in
> attending a LinuxSA meeting where politicians are given the floor.

That is your choice.

> ie something Linuxsy, or open-source
> related, not something written by speech writers and presented by a good
> talker, which'll be just spin to gain the votes of those attending.

I think you mean "technical talks" as opposed to "non-technical talks".
Given this statement:
 
> Sure, politics has it's place.  That place may include LinuxSA sometimes.  But
> if it does, I'm not very interested.  As per usual, just IMHO.

I would assume that you are not against politics as a subject.

Government policies can and do influence the work we do, the programs we
use and the type of people we can expect to emply. Our current
Government's policy appears to favour a closed source, initially - and
possibly continually - expensive operating system. Furthermore, students
leaving school may not be taught the fundamentals of computing science
but only know how to use a possibly obsolete set of packages in an
office environment.

Even outside of computer science we can see this happening. Students
need to be taught (again) how to communicate and how to write essays;
how to study. Yet they've spent up to 12 years of their life supposedly
learning these types of things. I've studied some older mathematical
exams and older English examinations (like 30 to 40 years' ago) and, in
my opinion, matriculation students then studied the same material that
1st year undergraduates study now.

To pace my analogies outside of the Australian context. If the U.S.A.
Department of Defense (DoD) announces that it will support only ADA-95
(2) and no longer support ANSI C this will and does make a huge shift on
companies, their staffs and the expertise they need. If the DoD suddenly
decided that all operating systems must be Open Source, the need for
expert Linux, FreeBSD and other Open Source skilled people in America
would increase out of hand - especially as President Bush II looks like
he's going to increase DoD's budget.

I agree that LinuxSA is not a political group, nor is it a lobby group.
I am suggesting that we invite the Minister for Information Services -
and perhaps his Shadow counterparts but not necessarily all at the same
time - to speak to us about:

* general Government policy
* views, thoughts, what is the Government's vision
* programs, bodies that can provide support to the Open Source Community

Whilst I'm certain the Minister would speak eloquently - I would expect
no less - I'm sure that we would make certain there is enough time for
questions, queries and discussion with the users of Linux and other Open
Source operating systems.

I assure you - and everyone - that my thoughts on proposing this matter
was to help and promote the Open Source Community in a non-political,
collaborative manner. I never suggested that we stage this as a "lobby"
style meeting, but instead a meeting where we can all get together in a
relatively informal session and learn about each other.

If we are able to institute change and have more support for Open Source
from within the Government, to gain better skilled graduates (from
matric and/or university) whom we don't have to train _again_ in
Unix/Linux/BSD et al it will be to our benefit.

DL
-- 
Compromise or death, 
 he fought 'til his last breath
 he never had it in him to surrender
Just like me he never could surrender!

-- 
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