[Ambassadors] Ambassadors Meeting EMEA - IRC Summary 2008-02-13

[Fabian Affolter]

FAmSco
This part was skipped because there is enough stuff to talk about in the 
event section.

Ambassadors Membership
As of 2008-02-11, 305 Ambassadors have been verified (signed CLA and 
joined 'ambassadors' group)
MaxSpevack want to see more detail about the growth each month, and the 
regions where that growth is happening.  That is the sort of data that 
is very useful to Fedora Board and Red Hat in securing budget for 
Ambassadors.
The time MaxSpevack spent in Europe last year was very useful for this 
and the Fedora Project have more money for Ambassadors in general -- all 
over the world -- because he saw how strong Europe was, and they also 
know that South America is very strong.  Now Greg and MaxSpevack will be 
focusing much more on those two regions in the coming year than in the 
past.  So it will be up to the local groups -- and also FAMSCO -- to 
continue to provide folks like MaxSpevack with the data that he need to 
get budget.  This is the draft for collecting data about the Ambassadors 
Project http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/Statistics

JeroenVanMeeuwen remember us about that the countrylist has to be 
updated manually.  So that isn't representing the numbers exactly.  He 
recall that FAS has some information about the country for each FAS 
member so maybe we can check who is where in the 'ambassadors' group 
using that.  MaxSpevack sent in the past 2 days sent email to 
MikeMcgrath and Toshio asking if they can help pull data like this from 
the FAS.  He think that it is probably very easy for them.

ChitleshGoorah was talking about CLA.  He have noticed that some 
contributors (packagers mostly) are using fake names rather than real 
names.  This is mostly a Fedora Advisory Board issue, but its worth that 
everyone knows this issue so that we can little by little prevent such 
things. MaxSpevack suggested that ChitleshGoorah send send a mail to 
f-a-b about that and then they can take care of it (hopefully).


Events

Linux Solution
ThomasCanniot told us that Linux Solutions was a great success. We had 
the chance to received the 100 live CDs the first morning of the event 
directly on the booth. All the DVDs were sold or given away.  They also 
tried to have contact with Franz Meier, but he was too busy and we 
missed him.

MaxSpevack gave us some further explanations about the budget. He wanted 
everyone here to understand about budget.  At Red Hat March 1st is the 
date where we get new budget for the year.  For Europe, we have several 
ideas for this budget -- a few big shows like LinuxTag and FOSDEM, 
probably one big FUDCon somewhere in Europe, etc.  But also we have 
budget -- about $12,000 per quarter, for the entire world -- for smaller 
shows.
So he looked at the Fedora Events page and he realized that Fedora 
didn't help with Linux Solutions at all for budget.  But he want to fix 
problems like that in the future.  He just wanted to let us know -- we 
will have much more budget starting March 1st, and now that he is not 
the overall Fedora Leader anymore, he is going to be focusing lots of my 
time on Ambassadors and events worldwide.

MaxSpevack wanted to know if any new contributors signed up at Linux 
Solutions. ThomasCanniot said that most people came here to know what 
Fedora is, get a CD, and to make criticism (good or bad) of the Distro, 
or to have a chat with them.

RedHat Partner Summit
FrancescoCrippa said that there's a "RedHat Partner Summit" in EMEA this 
year, very similar to RH Summit (usa) format.  He wanted to know if it's 
possible to get a "Fedora space" into this event. MaxSpevack
think that Red Hat is planning *something* in Europe similar to the RH 
Summit in the USA.  And if/when that happens, we will try to have a 
Fedora event at the same time.  And from now on, we will have a FUDCon 
at every RH Summit, anywhere in the world. Details about "RedHat Partner 
Summit" http://www.europe.redhat.com/mktg/partnersummit/?sc_cid=547

Lolug Pillole at Lodi (formally "Fedora by Night")
Francesco Crippa told us that everything should be ready.  He have 
received DVDs from MaxSpevack some weeks ago.  T-Shirts and caps (20 
items) from Spreadshirt last week (with local "own" budget) and tomorrow 
he hope to have Mairin posters printed.  They have got at least 3 big 
online italian newspaper that report news about "fedora by night"

ValentTurkovic asked about budgeting.  He wanted to know if the budget 
covers some events that promote fedora but aren't shows.  He have a 
project in mind that would get quite large media coverage in Croatian 
mainstream media and he would like to present it like Red Hat/Fedora 
sponsored event.  It would be localization marathon - we would get 10-15 
contributors to work on translation of Fedora, Gnome and other projects 
to Croatia. That would be a great way of promoting Fedora as a 
distribution for education, local groverment, etc... He believe that 
this would be a really not expensive event. And they would also like to 
distribute Fedora promo materials on this event that would be 2 days 
long. We could do this every month... and threy believe that after 2-3 
events we would get local companies to cover the budget.

MaxSpevack think it sounds very, very interesting.  And he would think 
that DimitrisGlezos, who is our translation and localization king, could 
probably help you out. He is happy to support an activity like that. He 
really need to do a longer presentation to all of you about our budget. 
  But there is also money set aside for localization, and for other 
opportunities that we can't forsee but that come up.  For anything 
specific to the actual *work* around localization, he suggest Valent 
talk to DimitrisGlezos.  For any money needs, MaxSpevack is the guy to 
talk to.


FOSDEM 2008
DimitrisGlezos have scheduled a meeting with the mediawiki guys to talk 
about localization, since we're thinking about having it as our wiki 
solution.  And also he'd really like us to sit down and discuss 
localization, our tools, community around translations and *everything* 
around this issue. So he'll make sure to go around and find a slot of 
1-2 hours to properly cover everything, so that he'll make sure you have 
what you need for getting the word out to any local group/language

JorgSimon will bring an "older" OLPC from Max and will bring the 
Posters.  The Fedora Ambassador Polos which are ordered and will arrive 
in time.  MaxSpevack is trying to get some new OLPC in time for 
LinuxTag.  ChitleshGoorah will bring a KDE4 on a laptop + FEL 
applications. DimitrisGlezos will bring a Tux poster 3m high. 
SandroMathys just got message from the linuxtag organizers that they'll 
attend FOSDEM (and some other European events in the next some weeks) 
too...maybe a good chance to clear some things in person where 
necessary.  French people will bring 100 Fedora badges, this is an 
experimental order from us.

Chemnitzer LinuxTage 2008
JoergSimon told us that the booth is allocated 
http://chemnitzer.linux-tage.de/2008/live/detail.html?idx=133 and a 
special Poster generated http://jsimon.fedorapeople.org/clt2.pdf
Attendees will be JoergSimon, RobertScheck, JensKuehnel, and 
DanielKretschmer. ChitleshGoorah motivates ambassadors to go to 
chemnitz, their social party is great  :)

OpenExpo 2008 Berne
FabianAffolter have already some Live-CD and they will try to resuse the 
posters from last year.  MaxSpevack will help after March 1 if we need 
any budget.  Maybe FabianAffolter will print some flyer to spread away 
with the Live-CDs.

LinuxTag
There was a offline meeting at the begin of February.  Check out 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/LinuxTag/LinuxTag2008/FLTT if 
you want to help

MaxSpevack noticed that there are lots of EMEA events in Feb, Mar, Apr, 
May.  But after LinuxTag the Events List for Europe drops off a lot. 
Events after LinuxTag (smaller than FOSDEM and LinuxTag)
  Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre (RMLL)
  Frühjahrsfachgespräch
  FrOSCon 2008
  OpenExpo 2008
  HCC! Dagen 2008
  Linuxday 2008
  Linux Day (Italia)


NPO
JeroenVanMeeuwen sent the latest draft of the NPO statutes to the 
mailing list, incorporating some of the comments made on the first 
draft.  GeroldKassube indicates that the financial department in Germany 
still needs to "OK" the first draft and that is just to indicate there 
are no fundamental problems - nothing official about their answer -. 
We've set up a page ( 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/EMEA/BoardElections ) where 
you can self-nominate if you would want to run for board and the law 
requires a minimum of 4 people on the board, and so far 4 people have 
nominated themselves.  Note that amongst those 4 is MaxSpevack, who 
regretably will not be able to attend FOSDEM and can therefore not be 
elected Again, that's a requirement by law and not something we made up 
on the spot.

GeroldKassube and JeroenVanMeeuwen have been thinking about postponing 
the foundation if there is 1) not enough candidates for board, or 2) if 
the ambassadors think max should be there when it all goes down 3) 
whatever other reason you can think of.  There was a parol "OK" by a 
German financial department for the first draft (?), but nothing in 
written form, yet.

Open stage
ChitleshGoorah did a presentation for Fedora Electronic Lab, 
http://chitlesh.fedorapeople.org/FEL/fel-fabless-solutions.pdf , please 
pass it on to those you may know who might interested. I talked about 
where FEL applications can be used and how academic institutions might 
take advantage of it.

Any comment or what ever is welcome.- Thanks

Next meeting (so far)

2008-03-12 - 20.00 UTC