[GNUz] The French... want your wifi customers!

[Don Gould]

Rik Tindall wrote:

Some good points... if I may offer some counter thoughts for everyone...
> 
> We're a software community,

Yes.  Software that we get how and is used where more than anywhere else?

  and once or twice monthly meeting
> volunteers. Proposing commercial ventures for this disparate group will 
> fall mostly on deaf ears, though some will listen for new ideas.

I know you realised I wasn't making any kind of proposal at all...

We're an IT community and this is important news to share.

  Those
> that are willing to discuss what an organisational stage would look like 
> are most likely to be found on the other side of the wireless 
> mesh/filter we have built up at the Sydenham workshop.

Yes.

Nick keeps hammer the question of why should we bother...

I agree with the view you've been pointing indirectly to the group Rik, 
others around the world are using FLOSS to expand wifi, wifi is being 
used hand in hand to get better access to FLOSS.  It's an interesting 
synergy.

  But even there
> we'll still bring our own project views and drives, and need to be 
> convinced that any are viable. Good luck with integrating yours into 
> FOSS public outreach around SFD! That's the Freenix agenda for the next 
> three months (always subject to debate tho), and only by proving some 
> client demand - I believe - do we have any prospect of exploring 
> commercial avenues. But even given that outcome, there'll still not be 
> many ready to change being a FOSS user simply as a matter of individual 
> choice - and not to earn or gain anything more than use and experience 
> from it. So it's a very big ask, requiring a ton of patience and diplomacy.
> 
Not entirly sure what you were on about here, however...

Case Study time...

Joanna and I had contact from a customer this week who needs to improve 
marketing of their business.  They want some points of difference.

We've said that they need to add broadband as a service to their customers.

They obviously responded 'we can't afford that'...

Following some discussion we found that they've been quoted $7,000.00 to 
$8,0000.00 for a new phone system.  They're paying $2,400.00 annually 
for phone lines plus have their broadband that they don't use fully.

So the first point is that there's plenty of money, it's just not being 
used well, 15 years doing communication reviews for businesses has 
taught me that there's always a better way.

Enter Astrisk, a debian gateway some floss software and some wifi aps.

My point, if you read this far already...

FLOSS can help our community in a big way.  Before we can work out how 
it can benefit us we first have to learn about it so we can start to be 
creative with its possibilities.


> Happy to help out where I can.

As are we all :)

Cheers Don