Re: promotion for linux in arabia (preliminary thoughts)

[Isam Bayazidi <bayazidi at arabeyes dot org>]

Salam All, 
  Arafat had posted a very interesting post in the doc list, and I thought 
that it would have all the needed audiance here in the general list.. 
  Arafat, your ideas are great .. it seems that some of them are already 
implemented.. such as:
1) A rough plan, roadmap if you may call it, can be found here:
http://www.arabeyes.org/projects/project_list.txt

I guess that this document need to be revised by all of you, suggest 
additions, involve in any part of it as you may see. I guess that we need an 
HTML version of the file, and we need a document with clear and good steps to 
achive what is mentioned in the plan. The only thing standing against doing 
this, is that Arabeyes does not have constant commitment by 
developers/contributors, this is my opinion at least..

2) "A website dedicated to the novice user, who wants more info about Linux".. 
I guess that is already done by a number od websites check linuxnewbie for 
example.. if you are talking about the Arab Linux User, then that is another 
story.. linux4arab provide some guidance for new linux user, giving some info 
about what Linux is and so .. What Arabeyes 'can do'/'had been doing' is to 
provide comprehensive document/pages about Arabic support on Linux.. it is 
Still in development stage, and it need to be translated to Arabic and maybe 
Frensh (the Other second langauge in Arab countries beside English)
http://www.arabeyes.org/howto/arabic-howto/

About other points you mentioned .. do you, or any one here in the list have 
suggestions on how to do it ? like how to reach big websites (those with big 
trafic) ? just send to webadmin at something ? or maybe if there is face to face 
meetings with people involved with those sites ? I am not sure ..

About analysis, I agree that we need to have analysis about user needs, 
although I do not agree with you when it comes to KDE :-) anyhow, how can 
such analysis happen? should we post polls about what users use in websites 
such as Linux4arab ? what questions should we ask, suggestions ?

If may add, there is few points about promossion that I can add.. University 
Students approuch .. campains to universities by Arabeyes/LUG members can 
help introduce Linux to University students.. those students serve as the 
core of any project servival .. as they are very giving and welling to 
contribute to community .. I may be mistaken, but most of the projects where 
born inside universities either by students or teachers .. (Linux, GNU, 
etc..) 

About Distro contacts, and other issues.. we need a taskforce for that.. You 
proposed great ideas, now we need to set up a team to work on them, don't 
expect that you throw ideas and wait for someone to do it :-) please step 
forward with action .. who is interested in working on the Arabeyes-Promotion 
Taskforce ? it is no easy job..

what do you think?

Yours
Isam Bayazidi


On Saturday 28 December 2002 12:35, Arafat Medini wrote:
> Salam all,
>
> Some preliminary thoughts about how to resolve the problem of the very
> very little user base of linux in arabia.
>
> 1.Contact the big websites like Aljazeera. Arabia, alarabonline and
> convince them to show articles about linux and the free software
> movement, convince them to let us elp in the making of the articles so
> that we can show the advantages of linux.
>
> 2.Make a website dedicated for the novice user who wants to get
> information about linux. It has to be a simple website which has all the
> needed information about linux.
>
> 3.Contact the major distributors to ask about some support in the
> arabization.
>
> 4.Contact all the arab linux user groups to make some in town promotion
> I think it the job of their members to promote linux among their freinds
> and at universities. Ask them to promote linux and collaborate with them
> for the acquisition of new users.
>
> 5.Try to analize the possible user base in the arabic world:
>
> for example :
> as paradox as it seems gnome seems to be more suited for the arabic user
> then KDE simply becasue gnome2 uses far less resources then KDE3, but we
> have are very far in KDE translation and KDE is  pushed very hard in
> mouth to mouth propaganda, the paradox is that when using KDE in tunisia
> I remarked that it is useless becasue it uses so many resources, so it
> is as if we were making publicity for a rolls royce for a road between
> Alexandria and aswan ...
>
> 6.The most important thing is mouth to mouth propaganda we have to show
> friends the distros and make them use the distros and ask them to show
> the distros to other freinds and so on.
>
> 7.Also very important in the internet community arabeyes has gained some
> respect we can try to use this respect to convince the orginazations
> mentioned above to work with us, like haydar linux does.
>
> 8.We have to make a plan and a timeline thos are preliminary thoughts,
> any other comment and preleminary thoughts about a  roadmap would be
> much appreciated.
>
> cheers
>
>
>
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