I Want to do some writing

[Randymanme]

I admit to not being particularly apt with software, fixing problems and so forth. But I have done some freelance writing from time to time, and want to do some writing in the areas of F/LOSS -- particularly about Ubuntu and its role in ubuntu.

It's my understanding, however, that insofar as Ubuntu Forums is concerned, religion and politics are off-limits. Can someone tell me how I might go about writing historical and op-ed pieces that are directly and/or indirectly relative to Ubuntu and F/LOSS for our immediate and tangential communities?

I know I can launch off into the WWW, hang out a shingle somewhere (so to speak) and start blogging, but I'd like to do it as part of the Ubuntu community.

I believe that when communicating the roles that Ubuntu and Canonical Ltd. play in the world community (and will play, God willing), it can be rather difficult to keep ethics and politics out of it. Nor do I believe that ethics and/or politics should be kept out of it.

I'm open to ideas and suggestions from the Ubuntu community.

I want, also, to add that I've received a lot of help with my computers here and I really appreciate the community given me. Thank you.

):P

[MG&TL]

Well...you could contact pretty much anyone you want. Generally, (unless they're busy) people who volunteer time towards a free OS are:

a) nerdy and docile

b) friendly and charitable

...so you could in theory contact anyone for opinions/interviews.

Or, you could try any one of the many ubuntu-related IRC channels, (get an IRC client, or use webchat.freenode.net). Many friendly and respected people on there. IRC seems to be the major way to communicate in FLOSS.

Social networking.I'm sure I don't have to tell you that there are a thousand and one pages relating to ubuntu on facebook, twitter, whatever.

Mailing lists. You can join a mailing list and get news, chat and general stuff about a particular topic, dictated by the mailing list.

About specific people, you could try Jono Bacon-as Ubuntu community manager, he would be the one to contact.

IDK what your plans and aspirations are; perhaps a little more detail?

[oldos2er]

Thread moved to the Community Cafe.

[Randymanme]

I've had occasion to read in some open source distro forum that a big part of Ubuntu's popularity came from Canonical's practice of sending free live CDs to anyone who requested one. It is usually described as a marketing scheme. Well, I take offense to that.


[First off, I need to admit that most of this post isn't my original prose. It's largely material that I've cut and pasted from the Wikipedia or other sources. Further, I cannot speak for anyone other than myself – what I believe may not be correct. I offer these thoughts as simply food-for-thought.]


I believe that Canonical Ltd.'s practice of forwarding live CDs of Ubuntu to whomever requested one (or sometimes more) was an off-shoot of the Shuttleworth Foundation's Freedom Toaster Project. I need to digress here to offer some insight into why the Freedom Toaster Project is so important. I will start with the Digital Divide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Divide)


Here, please allow me to glean some points from the herein referenced Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide). Do feel free to read the entire article at your leisure.


“ The Digital Divide refers to any inequalities between groups, broadly construed, in terms of access to, use of, or knowledge of information and communication technologies. The divide inside countries (such as the digital divide in the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Divide_in_the_United_States)) can refer to inequalities between individuals, households, businesses, and geographic areas at different socioeconomic and other demographic levels, while the Global digital divide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_digital_divide) designates countries as the units of analysis and examines the divide between developing and developed countries on an international scale.

“Explanatory variables

“Research suggests a multitude of explanations for the digital divide including, but not limited to: education, income, age, skills, awareness, race, ethnic origin, location, and gender (which is contested as being a confounding variable); political and cultural access; and psychological attitudes to Internet access and usage. Income levels and educational attainment are identified as having the largest explanatory power to explain ICT access and usage, with age being a third important variable, which means that prototypical "victims" to the digital divide can be foremost characterized as poorer, less educated, and older.”
---------------------------------------------

During apartheid-era South Africa (as well as in other geo-politcal locales in various parts of the world, today), the digital divide was a collection, as it were, of govenment-facilitated tools utilized to facilitate class inequalities and various forms of social, political, economic and psychological oppression and subjugation. I believe that the Shuttleworth Foundation used the Freedom Toaster as a tool to fight that kind of oppression in the name of the ethical principle of Ubuntu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_%28philosophy%29)


“Why with computer software,” you might ask? I think the One Laptop Per Child Foundation's, Mission Statement sums that up very well:

“To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. When children have access to this type of tool they get engaged in their own education. They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future” (http://laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtml).
I want to further suggest that had Mark Shuttleworth not been wealthy, connected, and an nth generation Afrikaner, the Freedom Toaster would likely have earned him a prison cell next to Nelson Mandala's.
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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8e/Aber_freedom_toaster.JPG/220px-Aber_freedom_toaster.JPG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aber_freedom_toaster.JPG)
http://bits.wikimedia.org/skins-1.18/common/images/magnify-clip.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aber_freedom_toaster.JPG)
Freedom Toaster in Aberystwyth
The original Freedom Toaster project was sponsored by the Shuttleworth Foundation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttleworth_Foundation). It consisted of a number of CD-burning facilities (in kiosk form), where members of the public were able to burn copies of free and open-source software onto self-supplied blank CD media.
The project was started as one solution to overcome the difficulty of obtaining Linux and other free and open-source software in South Africa, where the restrictive telecommunications environment makes downloading large software files prohibitively expensive.
There are currently Freedom Toasters at the following locations: Aberystwyth University (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberystwyth_University), Bloemfontein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloemfontein), Cape Town (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town), Diepkloof (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diepkloof), Durban (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durban), East London (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_London,_South_Africa), Grahamstown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grahamstown), Johannesburg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannesburg), Knysna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knysna), Namibia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namibia), Pietermaritzburg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietermaritzburg), Port Elizabeth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Elizabeth), Port Shepstone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Shepstone), Potchefstroom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potchefstroom), Pretoria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretoria), Seneca College (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_College) in Toronto, Stellenbosch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellenbosch), Stockholm, and Trivandrum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivandrum). Soon, it will be available at Michigan City, Indiana.
Functions

A Freedom Toaster kiosk is placed at a school, librar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopping_center)y, shopping center or another public-accessible location. Users bring blank optical discs to the kiosk and select the software that they would like. The kiosk will then burn the selected software onto the users' media.
The name derives from this function. "Freedom" refers to the free and open source software (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSS) provided. "Toaster" is a term for an optical disc burner.

Purpose

Freedom Toaster kiosks provide a way for computer users in economically disadvantaged regions and areas with limited or no Internet access to get software. By providing this service, the people behind the Freedom Toaster hope to address the issue of the Digital Divide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Divide).

Availability

The Freedom Toaster is mostly available in South Africa and is currently supported by the Shuttleworth Foundation. The Foundation is attempting to get others to adopt the idea by providing the tools to help create, support and maintain your own Freedom Toaster. It has also provided seed funding to Brett Simpson of Breadbin Interactive (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Breadbin_Interactive&action=edit&redlink=1) to create a sustainable business model with the idea.
The initiative has also been taken up independently by a company in India - Zyxware Technologies - who has partnered with Free Software Users Group Thiruvananthapuram (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Free_Software_Users_Group_Thiruvan anthapuram&action=edit&redlink=1) to promote Freedom Toasters as a viable method to spread Free software in India.

Mini Toaster

Mini Toaster is a compact freedom toaster, which is ideal for carrying. It can be used to carry to events like install fest, conferences, etc. easily. The only mini toaster, as of October 2010 is at Zyxware Technologies. It is used for the free software related conferences and events.

[Bucky Ball]

I've had occasion to read in some open source distro forum that a big part of Ubuntu's popularity came from Canonical's practice of sending free live CDs to anyone who requested one. It is usually described as a marketing scheme. Well, I take offense to that.

That is no longer the case. Free CDs are no longer mailed by Canonical and must now be purchased via the online shop.

[donniezazen]

I do not have technical knowledge but I actively participate in developmental release by testing and reporting bugs otherwise
I really wish I could help in writing an up-to-date wiki for Ubuntu.

[Randymanme]

That is no longer the case. Free CDs are no longer mailed by Canonical and must now be purchased via the online shop.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Randymanme http://ubuntuforums.org/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=11702798#post11702798)
came


Past tense. Not present tense.

Also, I make reference to "Apartheid-era South Africa --" a former time, no longer current.

[kevdog]

Speaking of the OLPC, Ars Technica recently published a story which seemed to cast doubt on any success of the program.

[ubuntu27]

You could start your blog, or perhaps contribute to another blogs and news sites such as

OMG! Ubuntu (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/)

Web Upd8 (http://www.webupd8.org/)

ILoveUbuntu (http://iloveubuntu.net/)


Ubuntux (http://www.ubuntux.org/)

Ubuntu Fridge (http://fridge.ubuntu.com/)


And someday, you might be able to cross post in Ubuntu Planet (http://planet.ubuntu.com/) :popcorn:


Good luck!

[Randymanme]

I really wish I could help in writing an up-to-date wiki for Ubuntu.

I'm a little hazy on this as I've never really paid attention to authorship in Ubuntu, but I don't think I've ever seen a writer's by-line on any official Ubuntu documentation.

Take, for example, https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo. I'm particularly impressed with the quantitative breadth knowledge and qualitative depth of understanding articulated in that article. But I don't see an individual by-line for that. That leads me to think that it was a cooperative endeavour, a project in which many persons contributed.

Well I think we could do that, too. Just in passing I think I've noticed numerous times where there's no article on some topic in the Wikipedia, and the enquirer is invited to start one -- utilizing the standards established by the Wikipedia. Perhaps this can be the start a new community project.

What do you think?

[Bucky Ball]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Randymanme http://ubuntuforums.org/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=11702798#post11702798)
came


Past tense. Not present tense.

Also, I make reference to "Apartheid-era South Africa --" a former time, no longer current.

?

[donniezazen]

I'm a little hazy on this as I've never really paid attention to authorship in Ubuntu, but I don't think I've ever seen a writer's by-line on any official Ubuntu documentation.

Take, for example, https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo. I'm particularly impressed with the quantitative breadth knowledge and qualitative depth of understanding articulated in that article. But I don't see an individual by-line for that. That leads me to think that it was a cooperative endeavour, a project in which many persons contributed.

Well I think we could do that, too. Just in passing I think I've noticed numerous times where there's no article on some topic in the Wikipedia, and the enquirer is invited to start one -- utilizing the standards established by the Wikipedia. Perhaps this can be the start a new community project.

What do you think?

I have been messing up with Arch these days. And they have an excellent wiki. A lot of time they will just refer you to wiki. On Ubuntu same info can be found in forum but is little scattered. Development in Ubuntu is way fast which could create problem if you use older threads.

And yes it's a community project not one man's job.