Want to help spread the word about the openSUSE Project and encourage more people to become part of the openSUSE Community? Are you ready to roll up your sleeves and spread the word about the openSUSE Project? Do you want to teach new users about Linux, speak about openSUSE at local events, help distribute openSUSE media, and mentor new contributors to the openSUSE Project? Then you’re ready to become an openSUSE Ambassador!

What do Ambassadors Do?

Since this is a new program for openSUSE, the Ambassadors will help define the role over time. But the general scope is clear: openSUSE Ambassadors help introduce openSUSE (the distribution and the project) to new users and contributors.

Ambassadors act as evangelists for the openSUSE Project and free and open source software. They help to mentor new users and contributors by answering questions on the mailing lists and in forums, by assisting users at installfests, or by helping new contributors get started with the openSUSE project.

openSUSE Ambassadors help to spread openSUSE DVDs at events, to local Linux User Groups, schools, universities, and businesses that might benefit from using openSUSE. Ambassadors staff booths at Linux events and answer questions about openSUSE, and explain the benefits of the project and how to get started with openSUSE.

Ambassadors promote the project and spread openSUSE by speaking at events, LUG meetings, computer user groups, or any group that might be interested in learning about the openSUSE Linux distribution and openSUSE Project. Ambassadors help bring new contributors to the project and help them become productive within the project.

In general, openSUSE Ambassadors are friendly openSUSE enthusiasts who help introduce openSUSE to new users and contributors. Ambassadors make “first contact” with new Linux users and help them get started and excited about openSUSE and Linux. They spread excitement about the project and (of course) have a lot of fun.

Signing Up

If you’d like to sign up for the openSUSE Ambassador Program, see the “How do I Join?” section on the openSUSE wiki. If you have questions about the Ambassador’s program not answered on the wiki, feel free to bring them up on the openSUSE Marketing mailing list.

You don’t need approval to get started. Just follow the steps on the openSUSE wiki and have a lot of fun!

The next openSUSE Project meeting will take place Wednesday April 22nd at 13:00 UTC. See all time zones on the Fixed Time World Clock. As always, the meeting will be held in IRC on the #opensuse-project channel on Freenode.

Please add your topics to the meeting wiki page at:

http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/Project_Meeting_2009-04-22

Please add topics as soon as possible. Also, if you have questions for the meeting, but can’t attend (we know that the meeting times can’t work for everyone) please add them to the agenda as well.

For more on IRC meetings, see: http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/About.

As always, we meet in #opensuse-project on Freenode. Fire up your favorite IRC client and head over to #opensuse-project.

Not familiar with IRC? A good overview can be found at irchelp.org. This site is not affiliated with openSUSE. For more information on Freenode, see http://freenode.net/.

Wondering what meeting times are? Check the openSUSE Meetings page. All project meetings and team meetings should be listed there.

Just a quick reminder: the next openSUSE Project meeting is April 8th, at 16:00 UTC. (See The Fixed Time World Clock for the time in your time zone.) As always, the meeting will be held in IRC on the #opensuse-project channel on Freenode.

If you’re a mentor or student interested in participating in Google Summer of Code, please attend this meeting!

Please add your topics to the meeting wiki page at:

http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/Project_Meeting_2009-04-08

Please add topics as soon as possible. Also, if you have questions for the meeting, but can’t attend (we know that the meeting times can’t work for everyone) please add them to the agenda as well.

For more on IRC meetings, see: http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/About.

As always, we meet in #opensuse-project on Freenode. Fire up your favorite IRC client and head over to #opensuse-project.

Not familiar with IRC? A good overview can be found at irchelp.org. This site is not affiliated with openSUSE. For more information on Freenode, see http://freenode.net/.
Wondering what meeting times are? Check the openSUSE Meetings page. All project meetings and team meetings should be listed there.

The next openSUSE-Education meeting will take place at the official #opensuse-edu IRC channel on freenode (irc://irc.freenode.net/opensuse-edu) on Tuesday

Tuesday 2009-04-07 17:00 (UTC/GMT)
(click on the time to convert UTC/GMT to your time zone)

This meeting is meant to discuss the latest developments in and around openSUSE-Education. Please add your topics to the meeting wiki page at:

http://en.opensuse.org/Education/Meetings/Education_Meeting_2009-04-07

Also, if you cannot attend the meeting, but have questions you want to see discussed, please add them to the meeting wiki page as well.

For general info about our IRC meetings read:

• http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/About
• http://en.opensuse.org/Education/Meetings

For a general technical introduction to IRC (Internet Relay Chat) see http://www.irchelp.org/ ;(not affiliated with openSUSE) or enter “IRC help” into your preferred search engine.

The network we use is freenode – for more information on this, including how to find a server, visit http://freenode.net/ ;(not affiliated with openSUSE either).

Have a lot of fun …

Lars (on behalf of the openSUSE-Education Team)

The next openSUSE Project meeting will take place tomorrow, Wednesday March 25th at 12:00 UTC (13:00 CET) See all time zones on the Fixed Time World Clock. As always, the meeting will be held in IRC on the #opensuse-project channel on Freenode.

Please add your topics to the meeting wiki page at:

http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/Project_Meeting_2009-03-25

Please add topics as soon as possible. Also, if you have questions for the meeting, but can’t attend (we know that the meeting times can’t work for everyone) please add them to the agenda as well.

For more on IRC meetings, see: http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/About.

As always, we meet in #opensuse-project on Freenode. Fire up your favorite IRC client and head over to #opensuse-project.

Not familiar with IRC? A good overview can be found at irchelp.org. This site is not affiliated with openSUSE. For more information on Freenode, see http://freenode.net/.

Wondering what meeting times are? Check the openSUSE Meetings page. All project meetings and team meetings should be listed there.

Hi all Education fans!

The next openSUSE-Education meeting will take place at the official #opensuse-edu IRC channel on freenode (irc://irc.freenode.net/opensuse-edu) on Tuesday

Tuesday 2009-03-24 17:00 (UTC/GMT)
(click on the time to convert UTC/GMT to your time zone)

This meeting is meant to discuss the latest developments in and around openSUSE-Education. Please add your topics to the meeting wiki page at:

http://en.opensuse.org/Education/Meetings/Education_Meeting_2009-03-24

Also, if you cannot attend the meeting, but have questions you want to see discussed, please add them to the meeting wiki page as well.

For general info about our IRC meetings read:

• http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/About
• http://en.opensuse.org/Education/Meetings

For a general technical introduction to IRC (Internet Relay Chat) see http://www.irchelp.org/ ;(not affiliated with openSUSE) or enter “IRC help” into your preferred search engine.

The network we use is freenode – for more information on this, including how to find a server, visit http://freenode.net/ ;(not affiliated with openSUSE either).

Have a lot of fun …

Lars (on behalf of the openSUSE-Education Team)

The next openSUSE Project meeting will be Wednesday, March 11th, at 17:00 UTC on Freenode. Again that’s:

2009-03-11 17:00 UTC

See all the timezones here: http://is.gd/lZgv.

This is going to be a fairly substantial meeting, so if you can attend please do so! We’ll be discussing the latest developments in and around openSUSE. Please add your topics to the meeting wiki page at:

http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/Project_Meeting_2009-03-11

Please add topics as soon as possible. Also, if you have questions for the meeting, but can’t attend (we know that the meeting times can’t work for everyone) please add them to the agenda as well.

For more on IRC meetings, see:

http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/About

As always, we meet in #opensuse-project on Freenode. Fire up your favorite IRC client and head over to #opensuse-project.

Not familiar with IRC? A good overview can be found at http://www.irchelp.org/. This site is not affiliated with openSUSE. For more information on Freenode, see http://freenode.net/.

Hi all Education fans!

The next openSUSE-Education meeting will take place at the official #opensuse-edu IRC channel on freenode (irc://irc.freenode.net/opensuse-edu) on Tuesday

Tuesday 2009-03-10 17:00 (UTC/GMT)
(click on the time to convert UTC/GMT to your time zone)

This meeting is meant to discuss the latest developments in and around openSUSE-Education. Please add your topics to the meeting wiki page at:

http://en.opensuse.org/Education/Meetings/Education_Meeting_2009-03-10

Also, if you cannot attend the meeting, but have questions you want to see discussed, please add them to the meeting wiki page as well.

For general info about our IRC meetings read:

• http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/About
• http://en.opensuse.org/Education/Meetings

For a general technical introduction to IRC (Internet Relay Chat) see http://www.irchelp.org/ ;(not affiliated with openSUSE) or enter “IRC help” into your preferred search engine.

The network we use is freenode – for more information on this, including how to find a server, visit http://freenode.net/ ;(not affiliated with openSUSE either).

Have a lot of fun …

Lars (on behalf of the openSUSE-Education Team)

So the polls are closed now and all votes have been accounted for and confirmed valid, and we are now proud to announce the election results! The openSUSE project would like to welcome the first community elected board, and would like to thank all voters for taking the time to use their vote.

The new board members are, from the Non-Novell side of the community Pascal Bleser and Bryen Yunashko and from the Novell side we have Henne Vogelsang and Federico Mena-Quintero. We are proud to announce that Michael Löffler has been appointed by Novell as chairman of the new board. Being the candidates with the most votes in their category, Pascal and Henne already agreed to serve the board for the next two years. Bryen and Federico have been elected for one next year, hence the next election will take place about the same time next year.

The election committee would like to congratulate them on their election and wish them all the best in steering our fine community and project. We would also like to thank all of the candidates for their interest in serving on the board, and we’re proud to have so many excellent candidates to choose from for the board.

For those that like numbers, the spread of votes is as follows:

Non-Novell
Bleser, Pascal	148	45.96 %
Yunashko, Bryen	69	21.43 %
Linnell, Peter	42	13.04 %
Rodriguez, Alex	30	9.32 %
Pasanen, Tuukka	18	5.59 %
Rusinek, Jakub	15	4.66 %
Total:	322
Novell
Vogelsang, Henne	126	38.18 %
Mena-Quintero, Federico	86	26.06 %
Shaw, Stephen	71	21.52 %
Michna, Marco	47	14.24 %
Total:	330

A total of 75.11% (178 of 237) voters participated in the poll. Voters had the option of casting two votes for each category, for a possible total of 356 votes per category for the election. Some voters, however, choose not to use both of their votes for each category.

The final count does not convey how close the election was in some parts, but it does show that the openSUSE community is committed to ensuring that they take a stake in their own project and that the understand that to make the project prosper they need to be active.

The election committee wants to thank the first openSUSE Board, Marcus ‘darix’ Rückert and Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier for their ongoing support. In addition to this we want to thank again all openSUSE members for their participation.

Due to the unforeseen circumstances of last week the Board Election Committee have agreed that for fairness and transparency the Election deadline will be extended. The new closing date for polls will now be 1200UTC Saturday 25th October.

As it stands now, over 57% of votes have been cast. Hopefully the extension will enable all voters the chance to have their voice heard. Remember, this is the community’s chance to influence the governance of the openSUSE project. If you don’t vote your chance to influence the project will be reduced. If you have questions about the candidates, ask them. They won’t bite, but they may be able to give you the answers to enable you to vote with a clearer consience.