As a movement, we have arrived.  When I first started writing about this topic, the idea was a nascent one, and the movement nearly non-existent.  Now, within less than 24 hours, my last post “Too Little, Too Late” has generated a buzz within our community.   Here are some of the exchanges.

Vinay wrote:

Another way of thinking about this: “Can Linux Scale?”

Answer: it is not, and never will be, Windows. But if Windows stops being available, or Linux is simply better than windows for your given application, you’ll take it and use it.

Lucas wrote:

It’s not just scalability, but also speed. “What three things will move OSAT forward at the pace that economic collapse requires?” is a valid question.

One thing will come from outside: a sense of need. Sudden hunger. Collapse itself.

But I guess the question is “what 3 things CAN WE DO that will move OSAT forward FAST”. Is it more of the same, or do we need to do something different?

What are we doing? We’re wikifying, doing video, building stuff, making links with other people. Could we do something differently? More of the same? Do WE scale? Or do we need some other component cos there’s no way we can possibly scale?

And:

…what’s the goal here?  Get each of us to be aware of other people’s posts?  Get people from outside to join us?  Resonate so that we’ll make more noise together so that the world at large will be more conscious of our work and concerns?  Find people who are like us but neither them or us know about each other?  If all of the above what would be the single overriding aim?

But I guess it depends on the aims at this particular time.  I think we want to put OSAT on the map.  Make OSAT a widely known, hence googlable term.  Push it until it makes it into big aggregator sites and media normal people read.

We have achieved the first step in this process; we are building an emergent network characterized by the key principles of complex systems: leaderless, interconnected, and viral.  What we do with that network, I think, largely depends on how we answer the previous questions I laid out: what three things will move OSAT forward at the pace that economic collapse requires?

We have not yet answered this question, but we’ve started to.  Our debate has justifiably sidetracked to technical details, as our community has felt the need to centralize our debate by developing a planet type blog (see planet.ubuntu.com) or some other such aggregator where this debate can take place.

Many suggestions have been made, from specific software packages to developing a “curated” blog where we can discuss issues related to OSAT.  Our community is too big and diverse to narrow anything down into a single website.   I welcome a planet blog, if and when someone puts one together.  In the meantime, we need to increase connectivity now; we don’t have time to worry about the technical details.  They will take care of themselves as we go.