[sf-lug] Towards a list of Linux consultants in the Bay Area (was: consultant?)

[Kai Chang]

I'm interested in developing a stronger web presence for FOSS-oriented
businesses.  A super-powered LinkedIn for Linux professionals might be very
successful.  We could aggregate news from LUGs in the area, follow all the
Linux twitterers in the region, and all that standard stuff.  Developing it
collectively through GitHub or LaunchPad might be fun too.

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 5:58 PM, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:

> Just to elaborate on that:  I'm aware there are list-members who are
> physically in the city of San Francisco and willing to visit individual
> Linux users at their houses/apartments to solve their Linux problems,
> either on a consulting basis or free of charge.  I salute their
> dedication.  Truly.
>
> This particular Linux user, Polly, stresses that she's an artist and
> decidedly not a technical person, and basically is not going to tackle
> even what's probably a pretty dirt-simple CUPS config problem without
> in-person handholding.
>
> There's a definite niche for anyone willing to do as Polly asks; she's
> hardly the only such computer user.  There are tens of millions of them,
> in general we'll basically never see them on LUG mailing lists (because
> they want personal, private handholding), and they'll never read FAQs no
> matter how many, how good, and how easy to find.
>
> The hard truth, though, is that giving them private helpdesk services
> (gratis or not) does little or nothing to build and maintain the Linux
> community.  I personally would rather spend my time where it will do
> more good.
>
>
> I'd be glad to keep a directory of people willing to do in-person Linux
> consulting (including free, the way LUGOD's LERT does in Davis[1]) for
> the Bay Area.  Joshua Drake, who before a nasty schism was part of the
> Linux Documentation Project, maintained the "Linux Consultants Guide"
> from 2000 to 2006:
> http://www.commandprompt.com/community/consultants/guide/
>
> That Guide attempted to cover the entire Earth, which strikes me as not
> a reasonable choice of scope.
>
> I've long maintained a list of Bay Area Linux / BSD businesses as an
> adjunct to BALE:  http://linuxmafia.com/bale/other.html  If people know
> of Linux consultants not yet listed there, please let me know.  (I need
> to be able to re-check on people / firms listed, so they need to have
> Web sites.)
>
> [1] http://www.lugod.org/projects/lert/
>
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-- 
Kai Chang  |  kai.salmon.chang at gmail.com
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