Linux-pe set up in Washington, D.C.

Dear Linux-using Colleagues,

I am addressing this to those of you who have been, or wish to be,
publicly active on behalf of free and/or open source software(FOSS, for
short).  I am, after much delay, about to embark on a project that I
have been brooding over for half a year: making an effort to make Linux
available in Congressional offices, both on the Senate and House side.

To build the public pressure necessary to do this, I have persuaded the
heads of our DC Area Linux LUGs to give me space on the machines that
they own and operate, at tux.org.  We have an E-list set up there,
named 'linux-pe'(for Linux -- Public Education); it runs on mailman
software, and the directions for joining are given below.

My first goal: to get one or more Representatives to put pressure on
the House Information Services to port their server SW to Linux, those
enabling Representatives, or members of their staffs, to install Linux
on machines in their offices, and use Linux to connect to the central
house servers.

I live in Silver Spring, MD, a short subway ride from Capitol Hill.
This means that I can actually visit representative's offices.  E.g.
I could deliver to them messages from members of this E-list that I
could print out. This can be very useful; the people on Capitol Hill
drown in E-mail, and who knows how letters sent through the Postal
Service fare, what with anthrax scares, etc?  And there are of course
other ways in which having physical access can be useful: setting up
meetings, etc.

I emphasize that this is _my_ goal, but I hope very much for participation
and discussion of this and other initiatives.  Working together will
be necessary for this or any other activist plan to be implemented.

It hardly needs to be pointed out that as a result of the recent elections
corporate power in the US will be even greater.  I believe that in general
this power will not be used to benefit FOSS.  If I am correct, participation
in educational activist such as this initiative becom . . .

I am sending this to the Chicago Linux community, because I know that
there are a good many members there interested in this activity; but
I don't believe that this E-list reaches all Chicago Linuxers.  So:

Please pass this message on to anyone you feel may be interested!

Here is how to subscribe:  send an E-mail to:
	[email protected]
with the command:  
	subscribe
in the body of the message.  Or you can visit:
	http://www.tux.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-pe .

-- 
Alan McConnell :  http://patriot.net/users/alan
     From SCAPOTUS: "Rarely is the question asked: is our children learning."
     And: "Will the highways on the Internet become more few?"