Welcome to OpenSolaris User Groups!
Introduction
OpenSolaris
User Groups (OSUGs) are sponsored by the Advocacy Community Group,
and all the information you need to get involved is here.
Please subscribe to
advocacy-discuss (
sign
up,
archives,
forum)
if you have any questions or want to get involved. We encourage
everyone to participate on advocacy-discuss so we can communicate
across all the OSUGs around
the world.
This is
particularly important because we'll have website infrastructure issues
to discuss and governance-related conversations that affect all the
user groups. The steps
below will walk you through getting involved. Welcome!
Join the Advocacy Community Group
Join an OSUG or Start a new OSUG
The OpenSolaris
Community is a community of communities -- just as the Internet is a
network of networks. Within the OpenSolaris Community, there are
Community
Groups centered around issues and technologies. One of those
Community Groups is this group, the OpenSolaris Advocacy Community,
which
sponsors user groups and other related projects. If you are new to
OpenSolaris
and are
interested in participating in a user group, this community group is
where you begin.
The Role
of
Sun,
Transparency, and the
OpenSolaris User Groups
OpenSolaris user
groups are independently run, but they are hosted on opensolaris.org
with projects and/or discussion lists. Sun participates in the
OSUGs by contributing website infrastructure and other materials. But
Sun doesn't run
the user groups or the Advocacy Community, and there has never been a
formal
Sun program to create and manage OSUGs. Instead, it's always been a
community effort. Decisions about the
Advocacy
and the user groups are made openly on advocacy-discuss and based on
community consensus. If something didn't happen on list, it didn't
happen. Everyone is encouraged to participate and share
ideas, connections, and resources.
OpenSolaris "User
Groups" are actually "Projects" on opensolaris.org. Projects offer user
groups substantial website infrastructure --
including a dedicated space on the site with exclusive project
editing privileges, a blog aggregator, source code management
(Mercurial and Subversion), a Mailman list with administrator access,
an RSS-enabled announcement section, and spaces
for news, file
hosting, discussions, observers, and leaders. Because user group
leaders are simultaneously project leaders who have earned the right
to manage their own project, they stand a very good chance of
gaining Contributor and/or Core Contributor status within the
Advocacy Community under the
OpenSolaris
Constitution. Core Contributors are also considered Members of the
OpenSolaris Community, and Members can participate in community-wide
governance
issues.
Joining
OpenSolaris
User Groups
Look for
user
groups in your area. If you find one, simply join that group's
mail list, introduce yourself, get to know the members, and
participate. This is the best situation because you will have a
pre-existing group of people to get involved with. Also, since user
groups are usually based on geography, it's always best to
join an established group if possible rather than creating
infrastructure for overlapping groups. You should also join the
advocacy-discuss mail list, so you can talk to other OSUGs around the
world. advocacy-discuss is a meta discussion list
with leaders from all of the OSUGs as well as
anyone involved in advocating for OpenSolaris.
advocacy-discuss:
sign
up,
archives,
forum.
Start a
New OpenSolaris User Group
If there is no
established user group in your area, you can propose that a new group
be created and hosted on opensolaris.org. To get user
group infrastructure (a project space and mailing list) on
opensolaris.org, send a short proposal to
advocacy-discuss (
sign
up,
archives,
forum).
You
need one +1 vote and no -1 votes. Only Core Contributors
can vote, and voting is open on advocacy-discuss for five days. Write
your proposal in the following format:
- Name of your OpenSolaris User Group
- Two or more initial participants listed with their OpenSolaris
user IDs
- A one paragraph description of the group -- including location
(City, State, Country),
activities planned, related organizations, etc.
If your user group proposal is approved, the Advocacy Community
Facilitator will work with you to set
up a project space and mail list. As a leader of your
new user group, it is expected that you will maintain your
project space and mail list (filter spam, add/remove names,
communicate with the OpenSolaris webmaster and other community members
on advocacy-discuss,
etc)
just as all the other project leads in the OpenSolaris Community.
Please review the
OpenSolaris
Website Guidelines and
Sun
trademarks policy so you are clear about website issues --
especially the policy around mail list management. For instance, if
lists are not used and properly managed, they can be deleted after a
period of time. Also,
please review the
Community/Project
lead reference so you are familiar with how to manage your
project space – especially if you will be taking contributions from
non-Sun contributors. And, of course, we all expect that projects
within the Advocacy Community to follow the open source spirit of
transparency
and the governing rules specified by the OpenSolaris Constitution.
Page Updated: Jim
Grisanzio, 11/08/08