GNOME User Groups

Creating local GNOME user/developer groups is a very good idea, since it helps a lot in getting local people, in their own language, to know more about getting involved in GNOME.

Some directions on what to do:

• Create an IRC channel (#gnome-XX) on irc.gnome.org
• Once there's enough people to meet together, try to do meetings regularly. Those meetings can be about tutorials, bug hunting sessions, etc

• Create some mailing lists and a web page in your own language. You can either register a new domain (gnome.XX) or ask the GNOME administrators to relay the XX.gnome.org subdomain to you, as it was done for GNOME Hispano or a wiki page in this wiki.

When wanting to promote/market

• Find out what other groups are doing, get in contact with them and collaborate on common goals.
• Find out what events are going on and contact the organisers to see if you can be there to promote your goal.
• Find out what companies near you support GNOME and build a list so you can tell interested people or companies about them.
• make contact with local magazines you could write a story for.
• Localise GNOME press releases and send them to papers/magazines and offer to do a story about it. (when possible)
• Just build a network of companies, foundations and people.
• Don't ever make promises you can't keep (actually quite important)
  • Don't offer to do a magazine story about GNOME when you are not a good writer.
  • Don't offer to give a lecture on GNOME for a tech audience when you are not a tech person.
  • etc...
• When you have built a network, try to get sponsors for essential props like business cards/t-shirts/posters
• Keep it simple
  • When writing an article, write about the most basic elements of the project - our community, our focus on simplicity and usability, find old and new screenshots to remind yourself what has changed
  • When preparing a talk, do the same. We have a tendency to look to the future all the time, and forget that most people don't know our past or our present.
  • When presenting GNOME, ask yourself if your presentation answers the question "why?" more than "how?" or "what?" - it's important to say what GNOME is (or Ekiga, or GTK+, or whatever) if you're giving a presentation on it, but consider that your audience is more interested in what it allows them to achieve than about the tool itself. Talk about the cool things that GNOME allows you to do.

perhaps most important

• join the MarketingTeam mailing list

Upcoming user group events

Check the GNOME Community Calendar for other events - contact DaveNeary to help maintain this calendar, or to add events.

Past user group events

• Solutions Linux 2005: Paris, France, 1 - 3 Feb 2005

  • Sebastien Tricaud wrote a report on this event.

• Fosdem 2005: Brussels, Belguim, 26 - 27 Feb 2005

  • There was a large GNOME presence, with Damien Sandras (GnomeMeeting) organising the conference. There were several GNOME specific talks in the Gnome Developers room, and Alexander Larsson spoke in the main conference about Nautilus.

• Chemnitzer Linux-Tage 2005: Chemnitz, Germany, 5 - 6 Mar 2005

  • GNOME Germany had a booth. SvenHerzberg gave a GNOME 2.10 talk, ChristianMeyer and MartinGrimme gave a gDesklets talk

• CeBIT 2005: Hannover, Germany, 10 - 16 Mar 2005

• O'Reilly Open Source Convention Portland, Oregon August 1-5, 2005

  • This is the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. One of the more nicer open source conference with quite a different feel than other ones like linuxworld. Much smaller and I guess cozier. We've had a GNOME booth running for two years straight.

• Journées des Logiciels Libres: Lyon, France, 13, 14 Oct 2005

  • GNOME-fr will have a presence at this conference, aimed at spreading free software to the locals.

List of existing GNOME User Groups

There are lots of GNOME user groups around the world, who organise events, have fun together and participate in conferences. Find out if there is one near you!

• See also the local press contacts.

• See also GnomeWeb/GnomeSubsites

Please keep them sorted alphabetically -- herzi

GNOME Australia

GNOME Brazil

GNOME-cat (Catalan-speaking world)

GNOME Chicago

GNOME-cl (Chile)

GNOME-cn (China)

GNOME-cz (Czech Republic)

GNOME-de (Germany, Austria and other German-speaking countries) also GNOME Deutschland e.V.

see also GnomeDe

GNOME-fi (Finland)

GNOME-fr (France, and french-speaking countries)

see also: GnomeFr

GNOME-el (Greek language - Greece/Cyprus)

GNOME Hispano (Latin America and Spain)

GNOME India

GNOME Bangalore

GNOME Italy

GNOME Korea

GNOME-nl (Netherlands)

GNOME Perú

GNOME Poland

GNOME-Russia

GNOME Thailand

GNOME-Turkey

GNOME-UK (United Kingdom)::

comments

• suggestion: sort by continent, have one page for each usergroup with "CategoryUsergroup" on it and have some sentences in english and contact info. Then usergroups should link to their own pages. -- ThiloPfennig 2005-11-22 20:36:57

Updating the list

This is the list of local-related mailing lists in http://mail.gnome.org. Apparently there are more lists than groups here, and there are groups with their own lists not listed here i.e. GNOME Hispano. This is what m.g.o has:

• boston-social discussions of social events in the Boston area
• gnome-ar-list Advocacy, chit-chat and event planning in Argentina
• gnome-au-list Advocacy, chit-chat and event planning in Australia
• gnome-br-list GNOME para brasileiros | GNOME for Brazilians
• gnome-ca-list GNOME Canada
• Gnome-cat-list Llista d'usuaris de GNOME de l'àmbit catalanoparlant.
• gnome-cl-list Advocacy, chit-chat and event planning in Chile
• Gnome-cs-list [no description available]
• gnome-de GNOME in Germany (German translations)
  • gnome-de-board GNOME Deutschland e.V. Vorstand (private)
  • gnome-de-members GNOME Deutschland e.V. Mitgliedschaft (obsolete)
• gnome-fr-list Liste d'utilisateurs en Français (support, discussions, etc.)
  • gnome-fr-board-list GNOME-FR Board list - Liste du conseil d'administration de GNOME-FR
  • gnome-fr-marketing-list Advocacy and event planning in french speaking countries
• gnome-in-list Advocacy, chit-chat and event planning in India
• gnome-ir-list Advocacy, chit-chat and event planning in Iran
• gnome-my-list Advocacy, chit-chat and event planning in Malaysia
• gnome-nl-list Advocacy, chit-chat and event planning in the Netherlands
• gnome-no Liste for GNOME Norge, alle norske GTK og GNOME brukere velkommen
• Gnome-Turk Gnome Turkiye Listesi
• Gnome-uk-list Mailing list for UK based GNOME Users and Developers

Other possible user groups

• gnome-hk: http://www.gnome.hk/index.php

CategoryUsergroup