[luau] For Ohau Locals Only

[Hawaii Linux Institute]

I am sure that, even though this is supposed to be a geek group, some 
might have noticed a silent coup in our Honolulu city council a couple 
of weeks ago.  City Councilmembers Ann Kobayashi (Manoa), Rod Tam 
(downtown/Chinatown) and Donovan Dela Cruz joined forces to remove Okina 
from Council chairmanship.  Now Cruz (who is not even 30) becomes 
Council Chairman and Kobayashi and Rod chair two of the most important 
committees: "budgets" and "economic development", respectively.  The 
economic development committe encompasses, among others, all things that 
have anything to do with technology.  Thus, by a careful design, Rod has 
become our technology czar.  Since the city and county of Honololu 
accounts for more than 80% of the entire state, this is not a small feat.

As I mentioned previously, Rod and I have being talking for quite some 
time about making Honolulu the Linux capital of the world (or at least 
in the Asia Pacific region).  I think our strength is "localization".  
At the present time, localized versions of Linux are being developed 
locally; there is not much coordination among, say, Japanese and Chinese 
and Taiwanese developers.  We may be able to find some way to invite and 
entice those localization developers to set up shops here in Honolulu, 
and jointly develop Linux systems for business applications that can be 
used universally.  This is an over-simplication, but you should get an 
idea.  Linux is not the end, but one means to hopefully bring more 
business investments.

But, in order for this to happen, the city of Honolulu must itself, or 
at least a part thereof, adopt Linux first.  At the present time, 
Microsoft-trained IS personnel have built a fortress that is tighter 
than Fort Knox--I couldn't even get Rod's staff to "try" Linux (City's 
system adms will not allow a Linux machine to connect to their server).  
This is very frustrating.  With this kind of attitude and such a total 
Microsoft-ness, nothing is going to happen.

I will set up a stand-alone Fedora desktop at Councilman Tam's office 
next week.  LUAU members are welcome to drop by, take a look, and offer 
your comments/suggestions.  But I would challenge our local Linux 
developers to think more progressively and find out ways to encourage or 
even force Honolulu city to consider adopting Linux.  My main concern 
is, at the present time, nothing is going on, but when something may be 
going on, we, I am afraid, probably will not have enough power nor 
(system-wide deployment) experience.  wayne