[SATLUG] [Fwd: San Antonio Open Source Research]

[Justizin]

Howdy Bruce, Michael, all..

On 11/21/06, Bruce Dubbs <bruce.dubbs at gmail.com> wrote:
> Can anyone help out Michael?  He is not a member of the list, so email
> him directly if you can.
>
>   -- Bruce
>

No problem.. :)

>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: San Antonio Open Source Research
> Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 12:11:53 -0600
> From: Mpstark <mpstark at gmail.com>
> To: president at satlug.org, director1 at satlug.org, director2 at satlug.org,
> director3 at satlug.org, treasurer at satlug.org
>
> Hello!
>
> My name is Michael Starkweather and I attend MacArthur High School up in the
> North East Independent School District (NEISD). My English teacher, Mr.
> Draves, has seen fit to assign a short research project about any topic in
> San Antonio. After reviewing my interests and recent forays into the Linux
> world, I came up with the brilliant idea to write mine about Open Source San
> Antonio. However, there is a problem with this topic: not much information
> is published about it at all. Frankly, I need your help.

Neat, a cousin of mine went to Mac.  I'm sure I won't be the only
person glad to help.

> As a San Antonio based Linux group, I would assume you would have more
> information and contacts then a seventeen-year-old high school student. Any
> information about this topic is relevant and I really would appreciate your
> help finding information. Acceptable sources are just about anything --
> books, papers, interviews (can be conducted by me), websites, and probably a
> few more. As well as sources, references to people would be great as they,
> as well, could provide these things.

Actually, when I was seventeen I was paid to harass SATLUG - you ought
to come to a meeting.

In San Antonio, there is not as much open-source as you see in Silicon
Valley, Europe, or South America, by far, but there are some
significant consumers of F/OSS:

  * The US Military, esp the USAF, relies heavily on F/OSS, although
as far as I know Windows is still the "official" OS, and it is a
policy violation to install GNU/Linux, or was at one time.  Some other
folks on the list can talk to you about this in more detail.
  * UT Health & Science Center, as most institutions of higher
education in the world, relies heavily on Free and Open-Source
software such as GNU/Linux to run a great deal of their network, as I
understand it.
  * Rackspace, founded by some local Trinity drop-outs, is well known
the world over and, though there has been a marked change in direction
in recent years, has always, afaik, had a great concentration of F/OSS
customers as well as relying primarily on F/OSS for internal systems.
When I left, we were fighting a lot about using Windows in the
IS/Engineering floor, so you might talk to Tom Weeks or Travis H. (?)
about that.
  * Lightwave, a proprietary software company, as I understand it,
relies on Free / Open-Source software for much of their business.

I'm not sure how prevalent F/OSS is in the government in San Antonio -
I know it is quite popular in Austin, including the TX State
government, and I could probably get you an interview with someone
there if you are interested.

Also, crawl your school's office and try to get in touch with someone
from the district IT department.  Administrators will probably blow
you off, but if you can find out when they are around and catch them
in an empty lab, I bet they'd be glad to talk for five minutes, or at
least dismissively confirm that they don't use F/OSS or want to talk
about it.

> I am especially looking for information about the benefits of switching to
> Linux with application to San Antonio.

One angle to push might be that GNU/Linux is an internationally
developed product, a true gem of international trade, and in fact the
ubuntu namesake has slipped into international politics of late as a
motto of globalization.  Many foreign countries refuse to use
Microsoft products because they feel that our government could have
some influence over MS, and thus open-source products may actually
open doors for a business interaction.

> You have no idea how much this will help,
> Michael Starkweather (Mpstark)

-- 
Justizin, Independent Interactivity Architect
ACM SIGGRAPH SysMgr, Reporter
http://www.siggraph.org/