On Sat, 20 Sep 2003, Tony Green wrote:

> Dear SLUG,
> 
> Today we regretfully tender our resignation from the positions of Vice
> President and President of the Sydney Linux Users Group. The remaining
> SLUG committee members were informed of our decision on the 10th of
> September.
> 
> Our vision and hopes for SLUG seem to be incompatible with the inertia
> of the community at large, as evidenced by lack of participation in SLUG
> events and apparent willingness of the group to be 'spoonfed' by the
> committee.

Well that partly applies to me. Guilty of just riding along for the past 
couple of years. My problem isn't just with SLUG though.

Let me ask those of you who've been in the Unix/Linux game for at least 10 
years if any of the following symptoms are familiar:-

* Sitting in front of a computer feels like work whether it is or not
* You're sick of hearing about the next big thing
* You're convinced there's hardly anything new, just rehashed ideas & new 
uses for old stuff.
* You wish but can't see why people don't understand they're trying to 
re-invent something which worked perfectly 5 to 10 years ago. EG chat 
systems.
* You're considering a career change but can't think of anything else 
you're good at.
* you go home after SLUG dinner every time (possibly even before)
* You're having trouble remembering the last time you enjoyed writing a 
program/script
* you miss the days when you'd lug your computer to monthly SLUG 
meetings to do some hacking or help someone else with theirs.
* very de-motivated to do anything with computers, or anything technical 
even though this contradicts the above points
* you find you're turning into quite a TV critic (ie watch too much)

I think it's called BURN-OUT, I'm about the right age for it, 34. 
INSPIRE ME
MOTIVATE ME
ENERGISE ME
UNLEASH ME

It's pretty fucked up that I tend to expect groups of people to do that 
for me I suppose. For a few fleeting moments it happens though.

If you've read this far, congratulations are in order. No offence intended 
to Tony & Jeff but some of the statements below correspond with the 
'symptoms' above.

Maybe we should just vacate and go out to pasture & let the enthousiastic 
youth run wild.

> Without an active, contributing community, SLUG will be driven solely by
> the committee, succeeding only if they succeed. Though we have
> envisioned "SLUG as a Free Software project", built upon everyone's
> contributions, it seems that the group's expectations differ.
> 
> This has culminated in making our roles within SLUG difficult, and left
> us feeling unsatisfied and demotivated. After much deliberation, we feel
> that it would be benificial for all parties if we resign our positions
> now, rather than waiting until the AGM next year.
> 
> It is for these reasons, combined with ongoing personal conflicts within
> the committee, that we have decided to move on to new projects. We'll
> still be contributing to and supporting SLUG as we always have.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> - Tony Green and Jeff Waugh
> 

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