Post by johnhudson on Aug 25, 2010 18:07:37 GMT
Notes of the meeting with Paul Colley and Gavin Massingham at Bradford CVS on Tuesday, 17 August 2010
1. Paul, as Publications Officer, had initially suggested the meeting because he wanted a wider variety of material from BradLug.
2. John gave a short update on the group, mentioning the diversity of its membership, the range of topics covered and the variety of ways in which members use FOSS.
3. Paul commented that he found that very encouraging as many IT related groups have a very narrow focus.
4. Gavin felt we should aim anything about FOSS at the smaller organisations, typically those that do not have an IT budget and may therefore benefit most obviously from free software. He noted that most voluntary organisations are small and that the money tends to be concentrated in a small number of very large organisations.
5. Following discussion of a number of options, it was suggested that we should consider:
5.1 a half day seminar on something like 'Saving money on software' which could perhaps be split into two thirds on suitable FOSS software and a third on issues raised by participants.
5.2 contributing a workshop to the community development day to be held at Cottingley Cornerstone on 5 November. A possible focus might be setting up secure Internet access in a community centre.
6. Each of these would be ways of testing levels of interest in FOSS.
7. Gavin has been contributing various pieces on IT/FOSS related topics and Paul would like to develop a mixture of basic how-to and why FOSS? pieces for the future.
8. Paul sees the Top Ten idea as offering a framework for a series of pieces in the future but would also like that to be interspersed with more 'thoughtful' pieces.
9. They are particularly keen to identify a local voluntary organisation which uses FOSS largely or exclusively around which they could do a feature.
10. Another idea would be to support an organisation through the transition to FOSS and write that up.
John R Hudson
17 August 2010
1. Paul, as Publications Officer, had initially suggested the meeting because he wanted a wider variety of material from BradLug.
2. John gave a short update on the group, mentioning the diversity of its membership, the range of topics covered and the variety of ways in which members use FOSS.
3. Paul commented that he found that very encouraging as many IT related groups have a very narrow focus.
4. Gavin felt we should aim anything about FOSS at the smaller organisations, typically those that do not have an IT budget and may therefore benefit most obviously from free software. He noted that most voluntary organisations are small and that the money tends to be concentrated in a small number of very large organisations.
5. Following discussion of a number of options, it was suggested that we should consider:
5.1 a half day seminar on something like 'Saving money on software' which could perhaps be split into two thirds on suitable FOSS software and a third on issues raised by participants.
5.2 contributing a workshop to the community development day to be held at Cottingley Cornerstone on 5 November. A possible focus might be setting up secure Internet access in a community centre.
6. Each of these would be ways of testing levels of interest in FOSS.
7. Gavin has been contributing various pieces on IT/FOSS related topics and Paul would like to develop a mixture of basic how-to and why FOSS? pieces for the future.
8. Paul sees the Top Ten idea as offering a framework for a series of pieces in the future but would also like that to be interspersed with more 'thoughtful' pieces.
9. They are particularly keen to identify a local voluntary organisation which uses FOSS largely or exclusively around which they could do a feature.
10. Another idea would be to support an organisation through the transition to FOSS and write that up.
John R Hudson
17 August 2010