[Hampshire] Meeting with John Denham

Last Friday I went to a meeting about climate change with John Denham
the Southampton MP and also Minister for "Innovation, Universities and
Skills".
I had the chance to talk to him for a couple of minutes after the
meeting and brought up Open source Software. He is genuinely interested
and would like an invitation to a LUG meeting.

With no guarantee that he would accept it, it is an opportunity to
demonstrate OSS and present a few ideas that would he would not normally
be come across.
He said that normally the Government (Civil Service) tend to try and do
whatever everybody else is doing to protect themselves against
criticism. A good briefing would put OSS slightly closer to normality
in his perception.

There is abundant presentational talent, experience and intellect in
the LUG and I could imagine that it would be easy to put together a
first class presentation.

Along with a demo we should give some background about OS, how it
started, how it works, why it can be relied upon, why standards are
important, the market what others are doing, issues around MicroSoft etc.

Southampton's other MP is also very interested so there could be a
chance of recycling any presentation to other people of influence.

What is the connection between OSS and the environment? I lived in
Munich for some time and they have an outstanding environmental record
and some of their ideas could be easily be adopted in the UK. These
ideas are the product of a very sharp city government. It is no surprise
that Muinch was one of the first major cities to break with MicroSoft.

What do people think?

Roger