It was actually because I approved of the sheer common sense of giving
people with no previous exposure to computers Linux instead of Windows
that I signed up to be Race Online 2012 partner in the first place.
That is why the sudden realisation that Microsoft was involved after all
came as such a nasty shock.
May I suggest that we make use of the Race Online infrastructure by
offering our services as help teaching people how to get started with
their 'on a shoestring' Linux systems, ether the official Remploy ones
or Car boot sale/donations from friends cobbled together affairs.
I was under the impression that the OS for these low cost PCs would be
Linux based but customised in some exotic way to make it super easy for
beginners (lots of locally cached content of the sort that beginners
would want to know for example). However now we find its just good ole
Ubuntu 10.10 it levels the playing field to let everyone stick Linux on
some old computers under the name of Race Online.
Everyone who wants to help sign up as a digital champion or a partner
organisation.
http://www.raceonline2012.org <http://www.raceonline2012.org/>
Hopefully the way it works is that other partner organisations in your
locality (a council of charity for example) will have the resources like
somewhere to meet, but not the Linux expertise. Together we can help
people to get to grips properly with the Internet, not just having it as
a channel to sell them stuff.
Can I please ask you to copy me in if you are signing up to help getting
new beginners onto Linux. If we get a big response this could be
newsworthy in its own right - which in turn leads to less 'fear of the
unknown' resistance as we go forward.
I am going to be at http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2011/ on this
Saturday if anyone wants to say hi.
Would Canonical not be interested in taking a higher profile in this?
--
*Deluxe Technology Ltd*
/Linux Consultant/
mhous...@deluxe-tech.co.uk <mailto:mhous...@deluxe-tech.co.uk>
http://www.deluxe-tech.co.uk
Mob: 07970 850961
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