Approval Application for Serbian LoCo Team (ubuntu-sr)

During its existence, Serbian Team has become one of the biggest free software communities in the region. We have established all infrastructure needed for an active online action, including the main web portal, mailing list, forum and wiki. Public actions such as install shows and presentations, media activities and general support that the team provides, together with the activities in cyberspace, made Serbian Team eminent and reliable Ubuntu and general GNU/Linux resource in country and region.

Key Details

• Date - 8th of June 2007

• Team Contact - Ivan Jelić <ivan.jelic At gmail.com>

• Membership - 999 as of 8th June 2007

• Mailing List - http://www.fsn.org.yu/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-rs

• Official Page: - http://www.ubuntu-rs.org/

• Forum: - http://www.ubuntu-rs.org/forum/

• Wiki: - http://www.ubuntu-rs.org/wiki/

• IRC - #ubuntu-sr on Freenode

Roadmap

Stronger cooperation with other free software teams in our country

• Although we are already collaborating with local free software communities in our country, we plan to expand further that collaboration and spread the free software love.

Creating additional CD

• The default Ubuntu installation disc comes without Serbian localization files, and without some software which is not distributed due to software patents in the USA. Broadband in Serbia is also rare, and slow, hence sometimes packages travel faster through snail mail. We plan to create an additional CD/DVD with a selection of packages and distribute it through out ShareIT network.

Expanding the core administration team

• Our community has grown exponentially in the past two years, and we are constantly looking for new forum, site, and wiki admins to compensate for the growth.

Organizing lectures & events across Serbia

• Until recently, all our events have been held in Belgrade. We have plans to give some presentations & lectures throughout Serbia.

Decentralization

• We have plans to make local teams in other cities and towns in Serbia, in order to provide effective community in out country.

Closer cooperation with translation team

• Several forum members expressed interest in helping our translation team. We plan to set up the infrastructure to help them coordinate and improve translations.

Creating commercial ecosystem around Ubuntu and free software

• Ivan Petrović has started a project of developing commercial ecosystem around Ubuntu in Serbia (which will probably be located on http://www.ubuntusrbija.org ). Also, two of our members work for the local company that sells computers (http://www.list.co.yu) and they are installing Ubuntu on every computer they sell without commercial operating system. We plan to reach out to companies that are involved (or want to be involved) in Ubuntu, and make our LoCo the central place for such ecosystem.

Release parties

• Ubuntu and Free Software are fun, so we plan to make release parties in future as tradition and make them around the Serbia. The 7.10 release party is the part of that plan.

Promo material

• T-shirts, caps, teacups, pens... With Ubuntu and Ubuntu-RS motives of course

Experience

ShareIT

• Due to problems with our postal services and customs, we have organized an action of sharing and distributing Ubuntu CDs across Serbia. Currently we have 37 cities covered, in almost every region of Serbia. Additional info about the action here.

Press coverage

• Articles written by our members appeared in numerous magazines, including GNUzilla (a magazine about free software, available online), PC Press, Mikro, Svet Kompjutera (samples: here, here, here, here...)

  Ivan Jelić also appeared in TV show on a station with national coverage (video available here (ogg), or on youtube: part 1 & part 2) and gave away some Ubuntu and Kubuntu packs to the audience. He was also interviewed for an article (search "Ubuntu") about Ubuntu in Serbian eminent political weekly Vreme, when he talked about Serbian Ubuntu community and Ubuntu in general.

Install Show

• We held an install show on march 4, 2007 in Belgrade, where we showed 100+ people how to install Ubuntu and explained the meaning of free software.

  Photos here and here.

Exit festival 2006

• Some of our members participated in FSN's (Free Software Network Serbia) activities during the Exit festival 2006 (info about Exit festival here) on NGO stage, installed *Ubuntu systems on the computers that were used on booth and during workshops, and helped visitors to understand GNU/Linux, Ubuntu and Free Software in general. Links to Serbian Ubuntu LoCo team website appeared on promo material too.

Key chains

• One of the most active members of ours, Aleksandar Negovanović made and distributed Ubuntu key chains in cooperation with local FSN branch. Photos: Ubuntu and Kubuntu.

Translating Ubuntu

• 85 of our members are a part of the Serbian translation team.

Forum

• With 900+ members, 14000+ posts and 1500+ topics, forum is the pinnacle of our LoCo team. The most active sub-forum is "Absolute beginners talk" with 280+ threads and 2600+ posts. We've been very successful in attracting new users to Linux, and we keep supporting them.

Meetings

• First "get to know each other" meeting of forum members was held on November 17, 2006 (writeup). During that meeting, the core team of administrators was formed, new site design was drafted, and a lot of beer was drunk . Second (in person) meeting was held after the Install Show. New duties were assigned, forum reorganization was proposed, and wiki was set-up. The core team has established regular on-line meetings on a weekly basis.