Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Alex Smith <alex AT alexsmith.org>]

 Hi everyone,

I'm Alex Smith, better known as HauntedUnix. I've been using Source Mage
GNU/Linux for around four months. After a happy period as a user, I
hope to give something back to the community :)

Following recent posts to the ML, I thought I had better get this out 
quickly. ;)

I've found, after repeated attempts at learning to program, it'll never be
my forte. I've instead decided, to try and devote myself in some way to
promoting (and of course evangelising) Sourcemage GNU/Linux.

Thus I propose the creation of a PR Team for SMGL.
I have a number of initiatives which I hope to integrate into the
immediate future of Sourcemage. Freematrix Streaming Media (#Freematrix,
http://freematrix.us) have expressed an interest in the profiling of our
project. After conferring with Kye Lewis, the Project Leader of
Freematrix, I have established, what I hope, could be an important
relationship for the distribution. I believe this could be a key event to
gain a possible influx of new developers, which I feel will be important
in the time leading up to the release of 1.0 due to Freematrix's target
audience, the geek populus of Freenode :)


Despite Kinetix doing a fantastic job maintaining the current
homepage(s) for SMGL, I believe that the content could do with a fairly
overdue cleanup. One of my highest priorities is making the website more
accessible, (although, I could never dream of the 404 page being
replaced -- http://sourcemage.org/404.html ). I've seen the recent
modifications which one of the users in #sourcemage has been attempting,
but steps still can be made to improve the site, and I encourage you all
to comment upon the site at http://www.sourcemage.juanzo.org/ .

I hope to work with the other Team Leads to coordinate press release
information. I will be setting up relationships with LXF and other
Linux-targeted magazines, and technology based new sites for further
promotion, regarding both our release schedule, and and other SMGL-key
issues (Sorcery, etc). I believe that by publicizing SMGL's releases we
can garner more users and developers to further our work, however I must
stress that action must be taken sooner rather than later.

I'd like to spend the time leading up to our 1.0 release increasing the
developer base, I believe this could be done by incorporating things which
would, in the opinion of our audience, be of great importance. The
finalising of SELinux has already attracted some, whereas the improvement
of the wonderful Prometheus project, has tagged interest from far and
wide.


I have a preliminary list of places which I'd like to target (Such as the
SELinux community, DistroWatch (cough), LinuxWeeklyNews, etc), which I
will be posting developer focused information, such as the recruitment of
new developers, possible opportunities for learning to program, etc.).

During the release and build up of the 1.0, I hope to, working together
with US, European, and other Linux based magazine and other large audience
news sources, create a great amount of press regarding the distribution.
This will hopefully create a swell of new users for the 1.0 release, and
put us in a stead for a future as a prosperous, well known distribution,
rather than a hobbyist distro.
I'd also like to have weekly updates of SMGL news (Packages,
Sorcery fixes, upcoming notes for spells, Sorcery, ISOs). Again, an
influx of users or developers would hopefully follow :)

Following the 1.0 release, the only way to progress is 'up', I hope to
continue with increasing the popularity of Souce Mage GNU/Linux, and
ensure that it will be the number one consideration for source based
distributions.



--
Alex Smith 
<alex AT alexsmith.org>

"After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have 
one."