[huskerlug] Re: Budget Cuts again
- From: <jwessels@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <huskerlug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 15:01:39 -0700 (MST)
Your post was one of the best I've seen to get me thinking. Although I am
not, nor will in the future ever will be again, an officer we are all big
influences in the group. There never really is a true do all core officer
- they just need to get ideas moving in the group.
It was what... 2? 3? years ago that I put that mission statement up. I
had grandeos ideas about what could be done in the group to help get Linux
rolling to the masses at the university. Heck, I even admit that I was
sick (from my perspective anyhow) of some of the current groups not doing
anything to help the students minus a pizza party and a programming
competition - and to take the work load off a few faculty.
Now, I must admit that I have not always had the mission statement in
mind. We don't need to roll anything out, just supporting the Linux
ideals at its root (which includes *BSD, and open source) and exposing the
others out there of altnerative solutions are what the mission statement
meant.
The mailing list does fine for "tech support" at the moment. What would
be ideal at this point would be using it to mobilize the ideas that we all
have. Several opportunities have passed us by, suggesting them and then
expecting the core officers to take care of it all. That's not a group,
that's a shareholder's meeting (loosely termed).
This is a technology group - we don't hardly ever see each other but yet
can get most of our work done outside of that. We should actually use
that. Sending rough draft letters up to the list proposing things for
what Perlman could do, administrating download servers remotely, putting
together cd's for booting, mailing spindals of distros for later swag -
its all possible.
All the core group needs is to say, this is good, now here is my rough
idea what needs to be done (or ask for rough ideas even), and delegate -
even an email or two a week saying we need volunteers for this would be
sufficient.
I'll grind on this for a while - but things are just stagnating and I fear
for the livelyhood of HLUG.
>
> Nowhere did I say anything about us supporting anything. Perlman has to
> make decisions to cut funds. Increasing support and licensing costs
> don't help him to cut funds. We need to "suggest" alternatives to him.
>
>
> Not everybody in a position of importance knows what is happening in the
> computing world. They rely on other people to keep them informed about
> things. We can give him that initial information. Maybe he will ask us
> for a proposal of some sort. Maybe he'll ask the people that the
> university pays to know about this stuff for a proposal. Maybe he won't
> do a damn thing. If we don't give this to him then what are we really
> doing? Sporadic meetings and an email list don't make for a fully
> functional LUG.
>
> I know about time constraints and pressure. Just a few years ago I was
> taking a full load of classes in EE and working 20 hours/week. At one
> time I was doing both of those and the president of the student IEEE
> group. Don't flame me for pushing you. If you feel overloaded then
> you need to delegate responsibility. If there is nobody else to take
> responsibility then you need to find somebody who will. I pushed people
> to get them doing something that mattered. I helped get more than one
> passive person actively contributing to the group. I just want to raise
> awareness of what we are here for.
>
>>From the Website:
>
> "The purpose of HLUG is to provide support for Linux and it's
> applications, connect Linux users in the area, and expose others to
> alternative computing solutions they may not be aware of."
>
> In this instance, screw the ongoing support, we're not paid to do this.
> We are connecting linux users in the area, yeah! I think ASUN blew us
> off. In reality I've never liked ASUN. Too much power, too much
> apathy, not enough brains, flat out overrated. But this is our chance
> to expose an alternative computing solution to Perlman. He's looking
> for any way to reduce the budget that will result in minimal staff and
> programs lost. He doesn't want to cut the budget, he has to. This
> requires budget cuts everywhere. If we can suggest an alternative that
> may cut $10,000 from the budget over the next 2 years then he wants to
> see it. That 10G could save a grad student or help keep tuition and
> fees down.
>
>
> *takes a deep breath*
>
> Thanks
> Eric Penne
> epenne@xxxxxxxx
>
>
> --- Alex Strasheim <alex@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> > And the next few years till 2005? What I'm concerned about is
>> support...
>> > and I'm fairly sure HLUG is not in a position to provide it. Call
>> me a
>> > pessimist, but that's what I see from this end.
>>
>> I'm a returning student, just back on campus, and I don't know much
>> about
>> how the university provides computing resources and support, so this
>> may be
>> totally unrealistic, but...
>>
>> You can check out laptops in the union and (I think) the library. The
>> laptops connect to the campus's wireless network -- it's a great
>> service.
>> But there are problems with it -- problems, for the most part, that
>> come
>> from limitations in windows.
>>
>> What if we could set up a single machine -- it woulnd't have to be
>> big,
>> because I doubt many people would use this at first -- and produced a
>> cd
>> image that would allow people to boot linux on those laptops, and log
>> in to
>> their own desktop. Something that would let students save bookmarks
>> and
>> files, and use a decent mail client instead of a web based client. It
>> could
>> use open office, and provide access to both KDE and Gnome apps.
>>
>> The idea is to try to provide a better service instead of trying to
>> win
>> politically by convincing people in a back office to make a change.
>> If we
>> can't come up with something useful, then support or resources aren't
>> a big
>> problem -- no one will use it, as we're not taking windows away from
>> anyone.
>> And if people do like it, then the university would have an incentive
>> to
>> pick up the project and run with it -- both to provide better service
>> for
>> the users, and to open up the possibility of climbing out from under
>> the
>> license fees down the road.
>>
>> A first attempt at the service would probably be kind of crummy, but
>> that
>> would be ok -- we wouldn't exaggerate what we're trying to do. But I
>> think
>> a pretty slick desktop could be created in a relatively short period
>> of
>> time, built on top of, say, debian, which has a nice package
>> management
>> system.
>>
>> Maybe if we run a pilot program in a year or two we'd have our ducks
>> lined
>> up well enough to be able to offer a real alternative.
>>
>> It seems to me, though -- I'm sitting in the union now, using my own
>> laptop -- that the school has done a pretty good job of rolling out
>> computing services. There's an enormous difference from the way
>> things were
>> 8 years ago, when I was last here, and they do a great job of
>> providing
>> computing resources to students who don't have their own laptops.
>>
>> Windows is just a part of that -- they're also supporting OS X, and
>> I'm sure
>> they have put a lot of thought into the way they admin individual
>> machines,
>> how they run the infrastructure and networks, and how they provide
>> support.
>> Changing major pieces of the puzzle, like windows and office, would
>> probably
>> be extremely unpleasant for the people who are sitting on top of the
>> system.
>>
>> It seems to me that the kind of advocacy most likely to succeed is an
>> advocacy that's based on people building cool stuff and donating it to
>> the
>> school. A web application that will allow kids to download syllabii
>> (if one
>> doesn't exist -- my profs don't use it if it does), or a desktop
>> system like
>> the one I described at the top of this, or whatever.
>>
>> Even this seems problematic to me -- if I were on the university's
>> side of
>> the table, I'd have concerns about how well things were documented,
>> what
>> happens if the volunteers stop supporting them, and so forth. It
>> seems to
>> me that we have to figure out how to do our thing in a way that the
>> university can live with; telling them to change the way that
>> they're doing
>> things is probably a losing proposition.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
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