I was disappointed that nobody took up my suggestion to organise a
presentation to John Denham especially since he welcomed the idea.
He hasnt actually seen Linux or Open Source in action and since he is
Minister for "Innovation" and other stuff I think that it would be a
very good thing if he had an idea of what OSS is all about. .
In ten days time I am moving to Munich. You may recall that Munich is
dropping MS and is coming to the end of a project to convert the
administration to OSS.
http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/dir/limux/english/147197/index.html When
this was being decided it was headline stuff in the Munich papers and
Steve Balmer himself interrupted a skiing holiday to fly to Munich to
lobby the council.
This is not as dramatic as that but we have the opportunity of informing
a very influential man and giving him a good impression of what OSS can
do. I hope that LUG could invite him to a meeting, give him an hours
presentation and a cup of tea. The secret is in the preparation. Decide
what impression you want to give him, what will be in the presentation.
Deciding on what should be presented must be an interesting process in
itself. It all helps to get OSS seen as mainstream. There is so much
else going on at the moment, Tesco PC, Eee PC etc.
I may have a chance of ambushing John Denham on Friday because he is
speaking at the University and I can have coffee with the VIPs. It would
be nice to say that the LUG would be pleased if he came to a meeting/ or
would be happy to come and see him.
Regards
Roger
