Project to create public awareness of Open Source

[schurtek]

I've been fully into Open Source for about two years now... and I have started a project to promote public awareness of open source... the project is currently funded by my company... and the problem is that even though a few people have joined... no one is participating ... this is causing my Board of Directors to want to pull the plug... how do I get people to get involved...

You can visit the project website at www.osm.za.org (http://www.osm.za.org/) and the site Forums at forums.osm.za.org (http://forums.osm.za.org/)

It seems that people are all about open source... but when it comes to actually doing something to get more people involved... they just don't do anything...

[Jussi Kukkonen]

It seems that people are all about open source... but when it comes to actually doing something to get more people involved... they just don't do anything...
If you build it, they will come... In these circles just announcing something is worth nothing: if you want people to participate, there has to be something that people can start playing with. I your case that would maybe mean getting an issue of your magazine out, even if it's just on the web. If it's good (somehow better than the alternatives), people will hopefully want to work with you.

Practical advice for the forum: Get rid of the subforums. Start with one forum and start creating subforums when/if people seem contribute a lot on a specific subject -- the current design just underlines the small amount of contributions, actively prevents discussion and seems bureocratic.

[DoctorMO]

Yes people want to work with things that already exist.

My dohickey project is still quite small but the releases I have made have attracted some people to lend a hand here and there. without that ability to play around with something no one can know if it's any good.

This is a technical world in FLOSS and we like to see technical results. it's like a averlanch; shouting at the mountin may or may not cause one but throwing a ton of snow down one will.

[raublekick]

this seems like a decent enough idea (and good that it has some funding!) but i agree with Jussi: tone down the forums first off!

[schurtek]

thanks for the feedback... will update the forums later today... thanks guys...