[advocacy-discuss] Proposal for OpenSolaris Project: "Champions" on OpenSolaris.org

[Jim Grisanzio]

hey, Aaron.

+1 to the proposal. Some comments/questions below ...


Aaron Houston wrote:
> ***************************************************************************************
> Proposal for OpenSolaris Project: Champions
> ***************************************************************************************
>
> *Purpose: *  --   Sun's Technology Outreach Group would like to 
> propose a new Sun program that involves an expanded level of support 
> for the OpenSolaris community.  

As a Sun employee, I'm certainly aware of the tech outreach group, and I 
participate in many of their events. But many people here in the 
community may not be aware of all the Sun organizations and activities 
around the world, so it would be great to see the individuals involved 
in those groups participating on advocacy-discuss. This way we can all 
interact and get to know each other and that would make the planning of 
events and programs more effective as we eventually meet live.

Sun has some good programs -- Tech Days, JavaOne, CommunityOne, Campus 
Ambassadors -- and Sun also participates in many industry conferences 
around the world, but it's not clear who plans and implements all of 
those events and in some cases it's not clear how the community can 
participate. And now we have the new OpenSolaris Summit to add to the 
mix, but I think the Summit is a good example direct community 
engagement and participation. OSDevCon is also a good example of this. 
Anyway, this is all cool stuff, so if Champions is an effort to bring 
more of Sun's outreach operations to the Advocacy CG, I fully support it.

> The program would leverage resources from Sun's existing programs: Sun 
> Tech Days, Developer Days, University Programs and Technology 
> evangelism to conduct a direct outreach function(s) to:
>
>     * OS User Group leaders
>     * authors (books and online content)
>     * University professors
>     * Students and campus ambassadors

It would be great to help bring students and campus ambassadors to 
Advocacy. I can't think of a more important group of people for our 
future than those guys.

>     * IT Consultants
>     * and other OpenSolaris Luminaries
>
> All would be passionate about OpenSolaris.
>
> We would like a project page and mailing list/forum to do outreach 
> functions to directly involve the above members of the community
>
> The program would provide additional support (speakers, events, stuff) 
> in order assist w/the growth of local OpenSolaris community activities. 

Can you talk a little about the speakers? Who are they? Or can the 
speakers chime in here and introduce themselves?


> Project team members would be engaged in the administration, 
> discussion, and evangelism in and out of the project...some are 
> already participating in the Advocacy community now...others would be 
> asked to participate/join to form a core group that would grow the 
> Champion community and admit new members.
>
> *List of Community Groups Sponsoring the project: *
>        Advocacy Community Group
>
> *List of project team members:*
>
> - Aaron Houston  (Program Coordinator), primary contact; Nichole Scott 
> (Program Mgr), secondary contact
> - Angel Camacho - Solaris Technical Marketing
> - Naveen Asrani - Senior Manager Sun Developer Network India
> - Peter Karlsson - Sun OpenSolaris Evangelist

I know Peter. The guy knows an /amazing/ seafood restaurant outside 
Bangkok. :) I've been to many of his talks on OpenSolaris as well.

> - Matt Thompson (Dir of Technology Outreach and Sun Developer Network, 
> Sun Microsytems, Inc)
>
> *Potential Community Champions:*  OpenSolaris luminaries, User Group 
> Leaders, authors of books/articles, university professors, and 
> independent IT consultants. The Community would have a self-nominating 
> process for participation and could start from a core group of 
> community founders (5-10). We would like the members of this Champions 
> project to be non-Sun employees. Sun employees could still participate 
> via the mailing list, events, and other discussions

Ok, so it seems that there are basically two components here: one is 
outreach to the community with events and speakers and stuff, and the 
other is the creation of a group of non-Sun people who would be titled 
"Champions" is that right? If so, what's the relationship between the 
Sun "Evangelists" and the community "Champions" in this context? Would 
they share speaking and/organizational roles?

> We think there are significant benefits to the growth of the 
> OpenSolaris community through engagement and discussion with Sun's 
> community outreach programs.  We want to create a community-based 
> program around community leaders who are Championing the merits of 
> Open Source software 

You say "open source" here, so would that be an opportunity for the 
OpenSolaris community to mix with other communities that Sun is involved 
with? In other words, I know that Sun does outreach around NetBeans, 
OpenOffice, Java and many others, and I think it would be great if this 
project proposal helps to engage some other communities as well.


> around the world; and, through this program support their efforts more 
> fully.
>
> The project will archive its contributions, presentations, and other 
> material to the project space on the OpenSolaris site.
>
> *Project Needs:* This project requires project space on 
> OpenSolaris.org  site. The project also requires a mailing list. 
> Suggested list name is  opensolaris-champions at opensolaris.org.
>
> *Proposed activities:*
> - Community-Centered discussion with Sun OpenSolaris engineering teams 
> and executive management.

I know that Tim Cramer is the Sun engineering representative to the OGB, 
and he and Bill Franklin met with the OGB at the Summit. And they, along 
with Dan Roberts, did presentations at the Summit and had extensive 
conversations there. So it's great to see some of Sun's key execs and 
managers get more involved. I know there are many other managers 
involved in various projects on the site as well. And, of course, all of 
the more than 250 lists on opensolaris.org represent substantial 
engineering discussions and development operations. Are there other 
discussions you are referring to here?

> - Better Sun support for OpenSolaris community events and activities; 
> including interaction among the Sun OpenSolaris Evangelists who 
> participate in Sun Tech Days, developer days, university events, etc.

This will be good. Many of us would like to see more interactions among 
the Sun events, the industry events, and the OSUG events. Would part of 
your program also involve helping people set up OSUGs? We offer project 
spaces and lists/forums, but the real work happens in the field, so some 
help and advice in that area would be great.

> - MORE FREE STUFF for the community Leaders and OpenSolaris Champions

We just sent out a bunch of shirts and hats and kits and other items 
recently to the user groups around the world. But we have not done that 
consistently, and we don't really have good tools or processes to handle 
it, to be honest. I assume you guys have a bit more experience dealing 
with the fulfillment and logistics of shipping materials around the 
world than I do. Well, I think anyone would have more experience that I 
have. :) Anyway, we've had many conversations about this in the past on 
this list, so the community will have some opinions on what items are 
wanted and needed.

> - Community leader "meet-ups" at industry events. And more interaction 
> with OpenSolaris Evangelists and at industry conferences.

Welcome to the community. :)

Jim

-- 
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/