[Ambassadors] Recent Activities to Report

[John Babich]

On 10/16/07, Jim Nanney <jnanney at mscoast.com> wrote:
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> All,
>
> I have not been to many IRC meetings since the big discussion about
> active/inactive ambassadors, but I thought it appropriate to post about
> the activities of the past week.
>
> Last Friday, Chris Negus (of Fedora Linux Bible 6, 7, Linux Toys, Linux
> Toys 2, fame, and many, many more) interviewed me about my company and
> my use of open source and in particular Fedora for my small business.
> Expected press date of the book is in January of 2008.  It was a
> pleasure to talk to him about the usefulness of completely "Free"
> software to a small business and home based businesses.  And in "Free" I
> am more describing the unencumbered software, free of patent issues,
> free of vendor lock-in, and of course free to modify and distribute.   I
> spoke about the need for more small businesses to realize the huge
> benefits of free software at length with him. I was told a complete
> section would be devoted to use cases and a couple of pages specifically
> about my business and its open source only devotion.
>

Congratulations on getting the message out and for the publicity for your work.

> Small business really is an overlooked aspect from my point of view and
> this needs more attention.  The average startup company must spend a
> minimum of $5000 in just software to get a small business running.  And
> in this initial purchase, a small business locks themselves into single
> vendor, proprietary solutions, that would require hundreds of man hours
> of work to change to an Open Source solution.
>

Having run a one-man consultng firm (pre-FOSS), I made similar
mistakes. The big proprietary software companies are now targeting
SMBs (Small and Medium Businesses) to get them locked-in early. We
certainly need to publicize the free (as in libre and gratis) choices
that FOSS provides. I especially would like non-profits and charities
to spend less money on software and more on the people whom they are
trting to help.

> Truly a small business can save lots of money using free software, not
> only in cost of the software, but in cost of not being locked to a
> single vendor.  This is information that *needs* to be available to
> those about to start a business, so that they can make an informed
> decision about what is best for their company.
>

+1

> This may only be my personal perception, but it seems lots of focus and
> attention is spent on showcasing large business benefiting from the
> switch to open source, but truly small business can benefit more
> percentage wise from making that decision upfront.  The latter of which
> does not seem to to be highlighted in articles or media.
>

Agreed. I'll definitely promote it in my blog and encourage others to
do the same.

> As for other Ambassador activities, this evening I hosted the South
> Mississippi Linux Users Group meeting and gave a presentation on using
> graphics packages under Fedora (specifically the Gimp and Inkscape) to
> create web graphics, and distributed around 10 DVDs and Live CDs to
> members.  While probably not a big thing to most of you, our LUG
> membership has dwindled to meetings of 2 or 3 people on some occasions.
>  Tonight was the largest LUG meeting we've seen since pre Katrina days.
>

Being involved in user groups in the past, this is great to see your
LUG have a good turnout and get the message out. The beauty of FOSS is
that there are "no little people". Every person matters.

> Thanks for reading my ramblings and I hope the meat of what I am saying
> makes sense,

Thanks for sharing them.

John Babich
Fedora Ambassador