Linux Australia needs to lift its public profile

Sam Varghese
Tuesday, 08 March 2011 12:07

Opinion and Analysis

A survey conducted by Linux Australia has thrown up one standout conclusion - the organisation is still very low-profile and needs to do some serious self-promotion so that the general public can become aware of its existence.

A total of 528 responses were received to the survey which was set in train by James Turnbull, who was president of the organisation for the first six months of 2010 before he stepped down to take up a job in the US.

When I interviewed Turnbull shortly after he took office, he had this to say about his reasons for deciding to conduct a survey: "We do not engage with them (members) and we need to. I am also keen to engage people who are not members and find out what we, as an organisation, can offer. Then we'll be more representative."

Turnbull, one must add, never shied away from engaging with the media, no matter the questions thrown at him.

His successor, John Ferlito, also a very approachable type, released the raw data of the survey publicly in January. The results are yet to be analysed officially. When I asked Ferlito whether the responses were all from different IPs, he said that this analysis had not been done and he saw no need at that stage (the query was put to him on February 21) to do so.

The survey responses - 423 from Australia and 15 from New Zealand, the rest from other countries - appear to be mostly from people who are involved in some way or the other in the FOSS community.

All but two responded to the question "How involved are you in the Linux community? eg . posting on the mailing list, attending Linux Australia events, voting in elections".

Of the 526 responses, 45.4 percent said they were occasionally involved while nine percent were heavily involved and 125 said they were moderately involved. Only a little more than a fifth said they were not involved at all.

When those taking the survey encountered the question "where did you first hear about Linux Australia" a little more than 60 percent skipped it. Of the 209 who answered the query, only 12 had heard about Linux Australia through the media.