I started this particular series of posts on January 5th, and now I am going to finish it on March 4th, so it has been just 2 months. In that time we have explored some of the ways everyone can support Free Software, such a by filing bugs, writing documentation, and by providing financial support. I want to wrap it up by exploring what may be the best way of all to get started, and this is to get involved. Join a group. Help out.
The first place you might to look at is your local Linux User Group (LUG). This is where you can meet people in your community who also are interested in Free Software. You might think that only Linux gets discussed there, but I’d bet you would be surprised. I know my local LUG has speakers covering a wide range of topics in Free Software. Last month we learned about Sourceforge, for instance, which supports a bunch of different Free Software projects. LUGs also provide community outreach, such as by doing install fests and by cooperating with local schools and organizations. I always suggest to people that this is the first place to go both to get help and to get involved.
The next place you might want to look into is with your Linux distro of choice. Mine is Kubuntu, which is a variant on Ubuntu that uses the KDE desktop. So I have joined my Ubuntu Local Community (i.e. LoCo), which in my case is Michigan. This group organize Bug Jams, where people get together to file and work on bugs. And they organize release parties twice a year when new releases come out. I know that Fedora has what they call the Fedora Ambassadors program, and many other distros have opportunities to get involved. You have only to ask.
Finally, I am going to mention the various Linux and Free Software conferences. I am involved with one called Ohio LinuxFest, where I am the Publicity director. I just finished writing a page for our web site where I listed 8 major positions we are trying to fill, as well as a bunch of day-of-event positions for volunteers. If you have never been involved with an event like this, you might not realize just how much work is involved in making the magic happen each year. But it is hard work, and every one of them is looking for volunteers to help put it on. And this is something you can do even if you don’t feel like you can file bugs or write documentation, or you don’t have the money to provide financial support. You can always provide help at these events. Chances are there is one not too far from you.
What really matters, though, is that you make a contribution of some kind. As we said when we started this series of posts, Free Software means Community-supported Software.
When it stops getting community support, it dies. If you value Free Software, then you have a responsibility to support it in one way or another. My role in this series is to give you ideas on how you can do that.
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