Dear all,

This year, I would like to change effectively the general direction of LiLux, in order to make it respecting its goals, as written in the status.

The aim of this association is to promote Linux and free-softwares, not to organise a kind of closed private club for gurus or known "usual suspects".

I recurrently suggested ways to open LiLux to newcomers, make it more visible or accessible to the general population. I think Linux (and free/opensource softwares) have been something quite restricted to a given set of gurus, or I.T. specialists. It is definitely no more the case:

* Linux is more used than MacOS
* Some free/opensource softwares are widely used, as Firefox (the most used web browser in the world), Apache (the most used web server in the world since Internet epoch)
* Some states/countries have widely adopted free/opensource products (E.U. recommends the OpenSource approach for the development of state software, promotes OpenDocument format for document exchange within E.U. administrations, ...)
* Linux is now widely used in embedded solutions (as set-top boxes, Internet access boxes, ...)
* Modern distributions (as the Ubuntu family) are ready for massive deployment in the general public
* Some vendors now deliver Linux pre-installed computers (Dell, MSI, ...)
...

So, aside of our "guru-only" meetings, we must make LiLux widely opened, visible and accessible for the public. This is not only for respecting our own values (the status), but also to protect our rights to still use and develop free/opensource softwares.

In order to do that, I suggested several strategies, that do not (usually) require effort, but just agreement from the club. Usually, those suggestions were discarded silently, which does not means that they were bad ideas but more that the goal of increasing the amount of members and making the club open to the mass is not perceived by some as a priority.

So, I would like to take the opportunity of this general assembly to have your reactions and votes on some of the ideas I tried to bring to the club.

1° A working public phone number referred in major phone-books to reach LiLux.
    (I offer the number and I agree on answering the calls)

2° Ad campains.
    As soon as we have regularly recurring meetings, we should advice on that. As example, a ~45.000 house ad (10x10 cm recto-verso) would cost ~500 €. We should try such a distribution on, as example, Luxembourg-city, and measure the return. Maybe the new members might even reimburse the advertisement costs.
    I can do the visual and organise the distribution.

3° Produce some stickers, leaflets, printed documents, so that it would be more and more visible that more and more people are adopting Linux and free/opensource solutions. I also suggested posters demanding the respect of concurrence rights in the OS market.

4° Recurring committee meetings.
    To follow and boost the various projects. I suggested (and configured) a virtual meeting-room available by both VoIP and plain phone number, but it seems not acceptable to some. I now have a PABX able to provide those services for free, available through both VoIP and genuine luxembourg phone numbers. I can offer this service for free to LiLux. If it is still not acceptable, we should organise a chat-based recurring committee meetings, on weekly basis, as some committee members are not available for evening meetings during working days.

5° A faster-connected server.
    I can offer for free a virtual computer connected to the Luxembourg backbone at huge speeds if LiLux is interested. I think it might be great for hosting, as example, videos around our activities. It might also be useful also as our current web site is hosted a way that might not be durable.

6° Participations to public fairs.
    We shouldn't keep closed in usual events, dedicated to free/opensource solutions, as this way we only meet always the same people. We should participate to wider events, in order to touch "real people", real victims of proprietary solutions. We could/should organise those booths maybe in common with local Ubuntu user group, LiLux and my company.

7° Proposing Linux pre-installed computers
    Through my company, I can sell computers. I could organise commercial agreements with major vendors (such as Dell, MSI, Lenovo, HP, Terra, ...)  to make available to LiLux members Linux-compatible computers, servers and laptops (to be checked with vendors) if LiLux is interested.

More generally, we should commit that the main goal of LiLux is not to maintain a poorly visited server, small private meetings, short member list or a bad mail service, but to touch as much as possible people and propagate the Good News: free/opensource software is available, valuable, respects user's rights, performing, portable, long-term sustainable, economic,  efficient, and most of the time the best solution.

If we agree on most of those values, I wish to keep participating in LiLux committee. Otherwise, I have other more efficient ways to promote Linux and free/opensource software.