Welcome to OpenSolaris User Groups
Introduction
OpenSolaris
User Groups (OSUGs) are sponsored by the Advocacy Community Group
(CG),
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 that we have a
convenient way to communicate across all the OSUGs and projects around
the world.
This is
particularly important because we'll have website infrastructure issues
to discuss and governance-related contributor/core
contributor conversations that affect all the user groups. The steps
below will walk you through getting involved. Welcome!
Join the Advocacy Community Group
Join a User Group or Start a New User Group
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 CG, 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 open projects and/or discussion lists. Sun participates in the
OSUGs by contributing website infrastructure and other materials from
time to time. But Sun doesn't run
the user groups or the Advocacy CG, and there has never been a formal
Sun program to create and manage OSUGs. Instead, it's always been an
organic, community effort from the very beginning. Decisions about the
Advocacy CG
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, a
Jive gateway web forum, 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 open and manage a project, they stand a very good chance of
gaining Contributor and/or Core Contributor status within the
Advocacy CG 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 who wants to get involved in advocating for OpenSolaris.
advocacy-discuss:
sign
up,
archives,
forum.
Propose 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 opensolairs.org. There is a full explanation
of the voting
procedures at the bottom of the front page of the Advocacy CG under
Voting
Procedures, User Group Proposals, Project Proposals, but here is
the short version specifically for OSUGs:
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 CG
Facilitator will set
up a project space and mail list. The project will be hidden until it
is ready to open with at least a minimum level of content (examples
may include a welcome message, contact info, meeting location, list and
leader info, etc). Only the Advocacy CG Facilitator can actually open a
project, so you will be working closely with Jim to get your project
and list set up. As a leader of your
new user group project, 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 various site 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 CG follow the open source spirit of transparency
and the governing rules specified by the OpenSolaris Constitution.
Page Updated: Jim
Grisanzio, 6/09/08