[Infopoint] Infopoint - lets make it happen!!

[naes yllek]

Hi Iain,

> I feel your pain :-)

Cheers :)
 
> It's tricky as hell to figure out how to spend your
> time/money most 
> effectively, especially when you haven't got too
> much of either.

Yep, even more so when there's little or no
appriecation.

> Sounds like you've put in a lot of work and come up
> with some creative 
> ideas.  I can't believe that college complains about
> running a live CD - 
> crazy stuff!

Sure have, and will still maintain to do so for as
long as sustainably possible. I haven't totally given
up, just like a rabid dog I'm biting down hard & aint
gonna let go!

> A couple of thoughts :
> 
> There are a lot of open source companies around. 
> Most do not have 
> stacks of cash, but are generally happy to help. 
> I've got one (based in 
> Manchester) and a know a few others over in
> Sheffield.  South Yorkshire 
> has a lot of FLOSS stuff going on; don't know about
> Humberside though. 
> If it would be useful to have something coming from
> either a company or 
> an official public sector body, it can quite
> probably be arranged.

Way ahaed of you there my friend by some 6 months.
This is where some of the false promises have come
from! A co-ordinator of another LUG once mentioned
that these entities appear to be a clique & guardians
of both information & funding, and are more interested
in lining their own pockets than to further the
opportunities FLOSS has to offer to the community.

I would agree with this, as my experiences of
contacting such organisations regarding my vision have
indicated this. So much for Hull been a "Pioneering
City" when they can't see beyond their BSoD LCD
displays.

Maybe the Manchester org you are aware of would
consider entertaining / aiding / or point me in the
right direction? Please feel free to email me.

> One approach that I haven't tried, but I always
> thought would be 
> interesting, would be to talk to schools and
> colleges about the legal 
> issues of large numbers of their students running
> pirated copies of 
> Microsoft Office.  Suggest that, as good citizens
> generally opposed to 
> stealing, it might be an idea to at least make
> students aware of the 
> issue and provide them with an alternative
> (OpenOffice.org v2) which you 
> would be happy to provide.  Since OOo is highly
> compatable with MS 
> Office (and as near 100% as makes no difference for
> essays, reports and 
> the like) students then have the choice of using a
> legal product.

Hehe, yet again already in process of establishing a
co-ordinated event with a local education centre who
uses a Fedora based LTSP roll out :) In fact the
director of the centre is going to be a speaker at
proposed seminar I'm organising (subject to funding).

As a previous poster has already identified, ideally
what is needed for each LUG who've been actively
involved in the InfoPoint project is a fund to allow
them to persue their advocacy adventure. A collective
fund and/or materials from the consumer distro's such
as RH, Novell, Mandriva etc... would be benefical.
Afterall we are acting as local sales persons for
their product. The only company who was forth coming
was Novell. Mandrake at the time gave me a blunt
refusal :( RH I'm still awaiting to hear from.

Cheers

Sean


		
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