Last week I wrote that John Denham would welcome a presentation about
OSS from the LUG.
Unfortunately I am moving to Germany in a couple of weeks time an will
not be able to participate. What I think is necessary is for a couple of
volunteers to commit themselves to giving a presentation and then an
office holder to contact John Denhams office and arrange a date and time.
Because he is a busy man, I think we should be prepared to go to his
office with a laptop for a personal presentation although he told me
that he would come to a meeting. I think that coming to a meeting would
be preferable but he may appreciate the option of squeezing it in to fit
his timetable. It could be put off indefinitely.
I think that the content of the presentation could be thrashed out on
this list although it would be up to those who are actually giving the
presentation.
As minister for Innovation and other stuff he has a budget of £800
million to spend. He hasn't seen Linux running but it seems as though
there maybe something in the air because both he and the other Soton MP
were keen to talk about it. (Please don't the impression that I am a man
of influence, your MP is more or less obliged to see any nutter about
anything - my particular craze is climate change. We spent a load of
money flying to Austria last year and there was hardly any snow.
Something must be done).
There was actually a debate in parliament about OSS in October
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2007-10-09b.46.0&s=%22open+source%22#g49.2
John Denham is pretty well in the position that he could summon Bill
Gates to demonstrate Vista to him and you can be sure that when it comes
to IT matters he will be subjected to the slickest lobbyists around. It
is a good opportunity to promote OSS.
You can almost guarantee that we wont be reading "...it all changed when
I visited the local LUG" in the political memoirs but should OSS come up
in the future he may well not dismiss it as readily as before. That
would be progress.
My Ideas for the presentation:
Should include a demo of wobbly windows to establish Linux as a serious
desktop. Mention Google and others to establish its capablilties, The
tesco machine to demonstrate that it is now mainstream, the Linux phone
devices and the Supercomputers to establish its versatility
What makes OS work
Why you can rely on it
How people can make an honest living with OS.
Open up Open Office have a printed copy of the OGC report. Point to the
conclusions. This is the sort of desktop they are talking about.
The importance of open standards, interoperabilty. Perhaps mention
Microsoft s contribution to open document standards.
and so on
I hope that a small team of volunteers could step forward and take this
on. It should be fun.
Roger
