[ncolug] Re: NCOLUG's direction and purpose
- From: Larry DiGioia <larry@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ncolug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2011 23:03:27 -0400
* After about 6 years of meeting with most of you every week in
person, in 2007 I came to the conclusion that all of the ideas,
fellowship, and wisdom of the people in the LUG, were easily
accessible within the framework of this mailing list, and (at the
time) our web - and I stopped attending
* I still feel this to be true. There are simply not enough of "us"
in central Ohio to justify such meetings.
* While the hope was always that our philosophies would "catch on,"
and thus "membership" would grow, this never really happened to
the extent that we actually saw many new "members" in North
Central Ohio
* I agree that Linux has not been the real focus for many years
* What *should *the focus be? my vote is for: information technology
resources that are freely-available and useful to users in "small
enterprises" - defined as "too small for the market leading
software and OS companies to make money on."
* What should the media be? I vote for a blog.
I think that this format is far more useful than the mailing list,
although I would not drop it - just de-emphasize it. A blog includes
feeds and links to all of the major social networks, and is easily
managed by anyone. I would happily contribute a domain slot and a
Wordpress instance to this future endeavor.
On 09/04/2011 11:38 AM, Chuck Stickelman wrote:
All,
Recent conversations on this list have gotten me thinking about our
group, its purpose, and its goals. Honestly, the LUG is in a slump
and I have no one to blame but myself. When the LUG was formalized a
few years back a Board of Directors was elected and that body
recognized a potential for the LUG to fall into a slump such as this.
The Board created the position of Director Emeritus For Life as a
mechanism for providing perpetual leadership in the event such a slump
occurs. Soon after I was honored with the title. As Director
Emeritus For Life it is my responsibility to provide guidance and
direction to help us get out of this slump. I still believe strongly
in the principles embodied in Linux and other Free and Open Source
Software (FOSS). But the term FOSS is self-limiting; those same
principles can be applied to hardware and data/file formats, as well
as software. More importantly, FOSS principles are at the heart of
the free exchange of ideas and information necessary in a free
society. To that end, I believe that by focusing the group on one
tool -- the Linux kernel and related utilities -- we have limited are
our scope and our potential.
So what do we do? We can:
1. keep doing what we've been doing, (and continue getting what
we've been getting.)
2. end the LUG and let whatever files the void (such as it would
be) file the void,
3. re-purpose the LUG to be more inclusive of FOSS and
FOSS-inspired projects in general,
4. do something not yet considered.
Ultimately, the whole thing is fairly rhetorical, as there really
isn't a "we". As Director Emeritus For Life, I and I alone, can make
the final call. But I */do/* want your thoughts and opinions to be
heard and considered. My expectations are that the direction and
fate of the NCOLUG is to be resolved by the end of September.
Please advise.
Chuck
--
Studio - D Productions l o n g w i r e . c o m
"The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook."
William James
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