[vox-outreach] OSS Presentation Thur 3-25 at Sac State MIS Association

[Edward Elliott]

Jerry Valentine at Sac State has kindly offered us an opportunity to come
and speak to the MIS Association there. I've taken Bill and Jerry up on the 
outreach offer and we have schedule Thursday night 3/25 at about 8pm for the 
presentation. 

I've pasted a draft outlien of my presentation outline below. I'd enjoy 
sharing ideas and participating with others who have ideas. Please feel 
to contact me, come along, etc.

I'd especially like to hear from anyone that has a connnection to any of these
organizations: 
  Sac State IT Dept
  UC Dave IT Dept
  City/County of Sacramento IT Dept
  Cal State Agency IT Dept
  Sutter Health IT Dept
  City of Davis IT Dept

Ed Elliott
(707) 428-6620
Ed_Elliott@email.com

Open Source : What? When? Why?

1) What is Open Source Software (OSS)?

Shared roots with science, math, literature
Licensing – GPL and OSI and Groklaw
Free Software? - FSF, GNU Project, Linux
Distributions – Linux (RedHat, SuSe, Debian, Gentoo, Knoppix)
Embedded OSS and Industry Consortiums
OSS Worldwide – Critical Mass in the Bay Area
Thought leaders - Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall, Larry Rosen, Tim O'Reilly, Mitch Kapor
Vendors - SuSe, MySQL, Apache team – IBM, Active State – Python, Sun – Open Office and Java, VA Software, OSAF – Mitch Kapor
Corporate Lead- Google, Yahoo, Ameritrade, 
Review of current solution stack - OSI model

2) Why Should Open Source Software be in your IT Strategy?

Price-Performance
Security
Direct Participation in Product Development
OSDL – Quality and Standards
Cost comparison of solution stacks

3) When Should Open Source Be in Your Plan?

Unix Server OS – Rapidbly being replaced by Linux
Windows Server OS – Upgrade cycle opportunities
Enterprise Applications – Database leads (MySQL), other apps follow
Windows Desktop Replacement
Clerical staff issues/opportunities
Consumer opportunities(Lindows)
Thin client opportunities and LTSP

4) Conclusion – Questions to Consider

- OSS uses a globally distributed collaborative model of development. 
Is this a foretaste of a new business model for the globally connected workplace?
- What motivates contributors? What if you had the chance to collaborate 
with Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Hamilton, and Franklin, and to create 
one sentence in the Constitution?
- When you start a business, will using Open Source give you an 
advantage or disadvantage versus your competitor?