Linux Dairy Council Steps to the Plate...

I've found myself in some pretty impressive company lately...

online anyway....for now.

Regardless, I am way out of my league here. They are called The Linux Dairy Council (got Linux?)

Here's a listing of the initial attendees of the first LDC meeting. If I missed you, it's my bad...please comment or email me and I will make the edits


Bryen Yunashko - Gnome Dev and OpenSuse Volunteer
Beth Lynn Eicher - Ohio LinuxFest Organizer
Mackenzie Morgan - Ubuntu
Larry Cafiero, Fedora Project and Redwood Digital Research
Joe Brockmeier, OpenSUSE
Nate Willis, - missed you at OSCON...hope to see you at SCaLE
Clint Savage, Fedora Project and Utah Open Source Conference
Alan Pope, Ubuntu
Will Smith (the Utah one, not the Hollywood one), Utah Open Source Conference

Many of us are stumbling around, trying to find the best way to get Desktop Linux into the awareness of the average computer user. There are millions of us already and I am fairly certain that even the most generous stats pertaining to Linux Desktop use are wrong.

There are more of us than I think many of us imagine.

But still...

on whole, the general computing public remains ignorant to the fact that they have a choice in how they use their computers.

Some that will read this blog will shrug and mentally file it under "WGAS"

(you'll figure it out.)

Well, there are many of us WGAS.

I'm going to equate it to a personal experience from a few years ago. I was in Tucson Arizona on Speedway Blvd, walking back to my seminar from lunch. At the curb, was a man in an obvious jam. He was trying to take some small but heavy boxes into a business from his car. I was able to observe him the entire block and while he struggled to keep them balanced and in his arms, maybe 25 people walked by him.

Like he did not exist.

Long before I was able to get within helping range, two young men spoke to him for a second and picked boxes from the top and helped him carry them to his destination.

I don't want to get into the social aspects of how we've become an untrusting society or how doing so might have been dangerous. We should help those who are struggling.

He was obviously on the downside of 60 and struggling with getting something done. He needed help. Could he have done it himself? Sure...stack them at the curb and take them in one or a few at a time.

Seeing the parallels here?

Windows Users do this almost every day. They've developed coping techniques to deal with the shortcomings of what they have to work with...from protecting their computers to transferring files from one folder to another. Tedious tasks most often that could be done much easier in most cases....and we all know examples of this beyond my simple two.

What The Linux Dairy Council prescribes is finding people that will stop and help someone in obvious distress carry some boxes inside.

Or show them that there is an easier way to use their computers.

The Linux Dairy Council Vision Statement:

The LDC is a project to help promote Linux in general, rather than specific distros. To help coordinate marketing and education activities around Linux by creating materials and organizing activities with other projects.

Many people might have some problems with being an active part of the Council...

You must, before anything else, check your distro bias at the door.

See, while we are seeking active and stable distros to take part in the LDC, it isn't a competition...we are going to attempt to use a cooperation model to get this done. Sure...you are a member of the LinuxMint or PCLinuxOS Community...great...get those distros onto as many computers as you want...after all, the goal is World Domination...right?

For Linux...not for any particular distro.

Within the LDC, distros are tools, not religious icons.

We are just now fleshing out some ideas to make this work. I am going to try my best to make it to SCaLE this winter and many of the LDC will meet there, hopefully having our own booth or one that we can at least form a presence. From there, we might be able to put some of our bigger projects into play...many smaller ones should be working by then.

But it's just starting and I wanted you to know. You are an important part of this...the most important part.

Marketing Linux will work...maybe not in the traditional sense, but it will work. We need your ideas.

And I wanted you to be a part of it.

All-Righty Then...