Introduction

The Ecuador LoCo team Ubuntu-ec is a group of Ubuntu Users comming together from different GNU/Linux User Groups and other Free Software movement under the Ubuntu flag. Always respectful and always there to support newcomers. Ready to share Ubuntu in different scenarios. The EcuadorTeam is ready for taking the challenge of reaching more and more people that use Ubuntu.

Spanish is the main language of the EcuadorTeam and we have been cooperating with other spanish-speaking communities like Colombia, Chile, Peru, Dominican Republic, Spain, Venezuela and Ubuntu-es. We have got guidance, material and inspiration from them and from the cooperation with the rest of the Spanish speaking LoCo Teams we are heading towards a better organization within the Ubuntu Spanish-speaking community

Key Details

• Date - (20 Jul 2007)

• Team Contact - Rubén - Hubuntu <hubuntu@gmail.com>

• Team Membership Since - 17-Sep-2007

• Memberships - 150+ registered users in our site, 60+ subscribers in our mailist, 20+ members in Launchpad as of June 2nd, 2008

• Mailing List - ubuntu-ec on lists.ubuntu.com

• Official Page - http://www.ubuntu.ec

• Forum Ecuador @ UbuntuForums

• Planet http://planeta.ubuntu.ec

• IRC - #ubuntu-ec (java driven applet) on Freenode

Roadmap - Short

• Increase our member base by becoming more visible in events and collaborating even more with other communities
• Integration with and greater use of the services given by Launchpad by implementing OpenID as our website/forum/wiki standard and only login alternative
• Reach out to schools and education centers by cooperating with members of the community to offer information and conferences in schools, as well as incentive commercial actors to offer support and services

• Be the support epicenter for Ubuntu GNU/Linux users in Ecuador. We'll achieve this by having a double support strategy: Community support offered by the LoCo, and be a resource for companies offering or seeking oportunity to offer Commercial support by giving information, advice and being a meeting point for them

• Participate in 4 Ubuntu/FLOSS related events every year
• Translate Ubuntu into Quechua

• Organize the LoCo in working groups and having local representatives of it in major cities

Roadmap - Long

• Expand - ubuntu-ec will look into extending its member base further. Through our exposure on events as the FLISOL (whose national coordinator and many of the local participants are part of the team) and other places we reach to a larger base of people. As an advocacy group Our main strategy is to collaborate with different institutions (Government, educational sector, private/productive sector) and existing Free Software groups in the country and their respective communities. The primary goal is to integrate these synergies to the Ubuntu Community at large through our local operations and the cooperation through the Ubuntu-es LoCo Cooperation project and move from there to more palpable contributions for the global Ubuntu community such as Bug hunting, and greater participation in form of code contribution.

• Integrate more with Ubuntu/Launchpad - We plan on moving the login for our site to OpenID with launchpad as provider. This would require all members of our site to move towards launchpad, but will definitely help us integrate all sides of our work into the Ubuntu world at large. Our aim is get users to get to know and use Launchpad and not let the language barrier stop them (many people in our team just speaks Spanish). This goal is better achieved by cooperating with the Spanish speaking community at large and creating documentation and help channels around the issue (mentoring groups, wiki pages) and getting people started with launchpad in an early stage.

• Reaching out to schools - In ubuntu-ec, we see the importance of sharing ubuntu with the generations of the future today! We are actively promoting Edubuntu as an alternative to achieve this and have a working group (F&B Sistemas, Solid-EC & others) which specializes professionally in this area and helps the community to spread the word. Our goal is to make this local effort the base for further work on this at the Spanish Ubuntu community and the global Ubuntu community. The plan is to make available a localized presentation on the issue and after the release of Hardy, remaster the 8.04.1 with tools needed in order to adapt edubuntu to local needs such as the [ http://www.proyectoalba.com.ar/spip.php?article3 proyecto alba]

• Support - Our community members work hard to offer more and more support to our user base. We emphazise the need for both Community and Commercial support locally in order to create a growing and viable ecosystem for Ubuntu and Free Software in general. Our government has taken the approach of Free Software as state policy and many people within the government use Ubuntu as their main operative system today and see it as the only viable alternative (Just works! Right? ;). This helps to achieve our goal of viability at large. Our strategy then is based in a double approach:

  • Community Support: ubuntu-ec is working constantly with several latin american and spanish-speaking LoCos to make available more documentation and other community related information material in Spanish. The group is heavily involved in the translation of the Ubuntu Weekely News to Spanish and several members work in Material and Documentation compilation and translation. Locally we have our members spread throughout the existing FLOSS communities and giving support both in our "official" and "non-official" channels alike. In the future we plan to make a bigger effort to make use of our forums and have plans regarding this (moving from ubuntuforums to SMF, vBulletin or phpBB, whatever works best with Drupal) to get greater visibility in an ordered manner in the technical side. This issue will be addressed by our forums team.

  • Commercial Support: the solid backing from our national government has allowed a lot of acceptance of Ubuntu in our country thus far. This has opened a lot of doors to linux support companies to think of ubuntu as a tool for business and many have taking the task of offering Ubuntu as their primary OS alternative in the desktop AND the server. The task at hand is to work at large with other stakeholders in the commercial side of FLOSS in Ecuador and make Ubuntu more visible in the marketplace. A comprehensive list of companies offering commercial support in Ecuador can be found here under "Soporte Comercial".

  • ubuntu-ec and Public Offices - ubuntu-ec is fortunate to have members and users in many organs of the government that is backing all Free and Open Source Software as a technological platform for the future of Ecuador. All public offices must use, or at least take in account Free or Open Source Software in future projects; thanks to this many governmental Offices now run Ubuntu and even the president himself has a personal IT advisor who is one of the early members of our team!

• Events - ubuntu-ec is gearing up for more events. A start will be celebrating Hardy's release within the FLISOL installfest and also give speeches, as well as offer CDs, stickers, T-shirts and other material to participants of the event. Ubuntu is in this Festival one of the main stars :). We plan activities for later this year (Summer gathering & SFD). The team has also decided to move into a nationwide 4 events a year cycle, synced with the SFD and FLISOL. The other two events remain to be defined, but will be synced either with the DFD or have 2 standalone Ubuntu-only related events.

• Translating Ubuntu into Quechua - Translating Ubuntu into Quechua language is a joined LoCo team effort between the EcuadorTeam and teams members from other LatinAmerican LoCos: ArgentinaTeam, ColombiaTeam, ChileTeam, PeruTeam, BoliviaTeam. The idea is to make ubuntu available to Qu*chua speakers in the Andes region and give them a true option for their use and through this show the real spirit behind ubuntu: Mutual respect for every other you! There are millions of persons across the Andes which today do not have a real option when it comes to software (or hardware for that matter...). our goal is to help changing this and lead the way towards a better and more including Ubuntu as well.

* KeepingU Focused and Ubuntu Locally - Apart from delegating local "representatives" of the team in order to work and cooperate with existing local communities in mayor cities, we have recently organized the team in five working groups (marketing, forums, website, wiki, launchpad). This is to include the active members of the community and have a more democratic approach to the guidance and future of the team. By next meeting at the end of June every team will have a general strategy working plan comprehending the period until the next LTS is released.

Experience Summary

• Advocacy:

  • Participated in 4 events: SFD, ESPE, DFD, FLISOL and planning ubuntec. See pictures and related stuff here

  • Participated in the pro-ODF campaign

  • 16 CD distribution points in 10 cities and 2 governmental contacts

• Organizing activities within the LoCo and been assisted and mentored by other LoCos (mostly Spanish speaking) so we could cooperate in common goals (documentation, communication, marketing efforts)

• Working with the NSU project to translate the Ubuntu Weekly News to Spanish

Experience

* Advocacy - ubuntu-ec has attended several national events held by local Open Source and Free Software movements in Ecuador. We do also have 14 CD distribution points in the country. this because in our country Internet is for the most part still a dial-up thing and many people just don't speak enough english to even ask for CDs at ShipIt! Thanks Canonical and the distributing members for making this possible!

* LoCo Community Awareness - Mentoring - ubuntu-ec has been keen on learning about how to best shape its community, and we don't want to reinvet the wheel. So we look at the greater ubuntu community and specially the Spanish speaking community from which we have got A LOT of help (thank you so much everyone!). The Ubuntu Ecuador LoCo Team has been working towards the goal of cooperating and organizing our activities across this community in order to reduce duplication of work and get greater adoption of Ubuntu in the region.

* Leading Noticias Semanales Ubunteras - as mentioned above ubuntu-ec, through its contact member, has taken the lead on the translation of the Ubuntu Weekly News to Spanish. We see this as a key factor in order to spread Ubuntu and acquaint people with the distro and its community.

Comments

I want to cheer for the Ecuador Team. They are doing a great job within the Spanish speaking Ubuntu community and are setting a great example, both for new and already established teams. Ubuntu-ec: you guys rock!! - leogg at ubuntu.com - former Ubuntu-ni Team leader