Re: GOSCON report

[Sriram Ramkrishna <sri aracnet com>]

On Tue, Oct 25, 2005 at 07:55:40PM -0400, Tim Ney wrote:
> Sri,
> 
> Sorry you could not get to Portland for GOSCON.  I learned a lot and
> left very optimistic about the future.

Yes, I was somewhat disapointed, but I had some items at work I
had to take care of.  I would have loved to have chipped in.

> The Government Open Source Conference was organized by Oregon State
> University's Open Source Lab (OSUOSL.) It was attended by about 200
> State CIOs and public sector IT Managers from 17 States including
> Virginia, New Mexico, Idaho, California, Washington, Montana, Utah, New
> York, South Carolina, as well as the country of Argentina.

Oregon is probably one of the most open source friendly states
we have.  It was the first to try to spin up an open source bill
that I know about.  Schools in the area have actively been switching
over to linux as desktop.  I think I know at least one person who
worked in the school district.  GNOME thin clients could make an
excellent entry in the educational space.

> The feedback I received was positive, if cautious. One attorney in the
> front row of my talk said she had no idea that these desktop deployments
> were taking place around the world.

Heh.  Desktops are gaining awareness if not popularity in at least
other countries.  I would have mentioned portland school district
and Mayor Tom Potter of Portland runs a linux desktop. (not gnome,
but kde, but it's alright.. nothing says he can't flip flop later. :-)

> It was clear at GOSCON that agencies in other states will follow
> the lead of my home state Massachusetts.  One thing that impressed me

Thats interesting news.  Did you get any good contacts that we would
be able to approach to provide say livecds or live demonstrations?
I could help if you have Oregon contacts.


Thanks for giving us your impressions from GOSCON.  It was
enlightening.

sri