[advocacy-discuss] Proposal for new OSUGs in Hangzhou/Xi'an at China

[Qingye Jiang (John)]

Hi Wayne,

I will have to agree with you. Yes we have started the effort to build 
OSUG's in Dalian. It is coming very close now...

I guess the difference in Linux vs OpenSolaris communities has its root 
in history. Linux is perceived as a grass-root movement, where the open 
source communities existed before Linux companies. OpenSolaris, on the 
contrary, became open sourced from a close-source commercial software. 
We have seen people who feel natural to join a Linux community from the 
Windows camp, but doubtful when talking about OpenSolaris. Honestly 
speaking, a lot of people are still thinking that Sun is trying to fool 
people by attaching an open source flag to a proprietary OS. OpenSolaris 
has come into existence for more than 3 years, we have witness 
increasing interests from developers from different areas, but we have 
not yet see large number of (none-Sun, or not affiliated with Sun) 
enthusiasts who are willing organize a local OSUG.

Sun is a member of the OpenSolaris community. In fact, it hosts the 
largest number of OpenSolaris developers and users across the world. In 
this situation, I think Sun should actively go out, and organizes OSUG's 
to spread Sun's thinking about OpenSolaris. In the ideal case, the 
OSUG's should gradually evolved from led by Sun, to assisted by Sun, and 
then self-sustain. I myself believe the Linux model should be our final 
goal, but it will take some time to get there.

This is why I like the way Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Xi'An organize their 
OSUG's. I do have members from my team attending these activities. But, 
most of the time they participate in discussions, and encourage none-Sun 
folks to do the heavy-weight talking. Although my team also actively 
sponsors the activities of BJOSUG, we might not take it as a model that 
can be promoted across the nation. BJSOUG has come into existence for 2 
years. Right now it still depends heavily on Sun speakers. It is good 
that OpenSolaris knowledge is effectively spread through this model, but 
we might not be able to build a strong none-Sun OpenSolaris community 
through this. And, areas far from Beijing do not have regular Sun 
speaker resources anyway so they actually can't learn from what we are 
doing in Beijing.

Best regards,

 ("`-''-/").___..--''"`-._                Qingye Jiang (John)
  `6_ 6  )   `-.  (     ).`-.__.`)        Senior Manager
   (_Y_.)'  ._   )  `._ `. ``-..-         Sun Developer Network, China
  _..`--'_..-_/  /--'_.' ,'               Phone: +86-10-62673347
 (il),-''  (li),'  ((!.-'                 http://developers.sun.com.cn/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
About ME: visit http://www.qyjohn.net/,    http://calendar.qyjohn.net/.
About US: visit http://wiki.developers.sun.com.cn/index.php/SDN_China .



W. Wayne Liauh 写道:
> I guess OpenSolaris/Solaris operates quite differently from Linux.  In the latter (e.g., SuSE or RedHat/Fedora Core), it is always local people who are not related with the corporate entity who operate user groups.
>
> There are, of course, pros and cons with each model.  However, if anyone asks my opinion, I would say that I much prefer the Linux model, but to be actively assisted by Sun employees.
>
> OTOH, as far as software goes, Dalian is probably "the" most important city in China--if not now it will definitely be in the future.  During my most recent trip to Taipei, I learned that the computer manufacturers in Taiwan have successfully lobbied daily direct flights from Taipei to Dalian.  This should underscore the importance of Dalian in the eyes of the high tech people at least in Taiwan.  And it is going to become very obvious in a year or two.
>
> Thus, I am wondering whether we should try our best to establish an OSUG in Dalian.  I will be more than happy to participate, and pledge our supports from Hawaii.
>