On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 9:39 PM, Anand Vaidya <[email protected]>wrote:
> On 05 June 2009 pm 18:00:01 Ray Rashif wrote: > > Hi Michael > > > > Thanks a lot for addressing this. I agree with you entirely, and > understand > > the situation better. > > > > I surmise the meetup group was initiated as a complementary solution, and > > there were no intentions of actually "forking" a committee. It didn't > need > > a membership, and hence didn't restrict _active_ participation. It just > > happened, because let's not forget that meetup.com is a social > networking > > site which people sign up for with interest, and unfortunately it appears > > to be serving a separate group after many years of functioning on behalf > of > > the OSS community in its entirety. (Though like you say, they would be > the > > same people if things were different.) At least that's how I'm seeing it > as > > a latecomer (or newcomer =p). As far as a committee is concerned, I'd be > > happy to lend my support and most importantly, time. > > > Hi Ray, > > Probably you are not aware of the history of LUGS and how SLMG came to be. > SLMG was started because of a few issues: > > - LUGS, in those days was insisting on a $10 entrance fee. I have opposed > this > idea vehemently [you google]. Many in the community felt so. The linux > community in SG was ( and is still ) on Life Support System and insisting > on > $10 entrace fee was like adding insult to injury. > > The whole idea of FLOSS is openness , and especially the free-beer part > too, > atleast for newbies. We cannot have the Enterprise Linux kind of paid > Enterprise LUGS. Many faithfuls will anyway pay the dues whether compulsory > or > not. I can vouch for that since I pay my dues to Vegetarian Society whether > I > get a reminder or not, whether I participate in their activities or not. > > - There was a general feeling that LUGS was dominated by experienced & > expert > members who probably did not welcome newbies , however, I know that was not > true. This is what I heard (in 2004, quite often) from new members at SLMG. > > - LUGS would routinely ignore suggestions from members. I guess an > overworked > committee with very few volunteers , and members who did more talking than > action may be the cause. I guess the financial mess that resulted from a > major event (was it Asian OSS conference?) that LUGS attempted to organize > was > also a big reason. > > - SLMG was much more casual and easy going in format with absolutely no > minimum entrance criteria. You are interested? Just walk in. I guess the > initial sponsorship of curry puffs by Novell did help too ;-) > > - SLMG was not created as a competitor to LUGS but to supplant the efforts > and > engage those fence sitters and those in the Windows camp and newbies/first > timers. Moreover, the idea of Meetup groups was new and interesting too. A > lot of SLMG members found SLMG via meetup.com > > - I think those who run SLMG, and I can definitely vouch for atleast > Darrell > and Tom (oh and even DRigby of Ubuntu.sg), are keen to work closely with > LUGS. > In fact, FOSA has been formed recently as an umbrella organizations for all > OSS groups in SG. It is now a registered org, and will have its first AGM > at > the June meetup. Be there. > > I think LUGS is a dead org. It is best to shut it down and accept SLMG / > FOSA > as the new org for OSS effort in Singapore. If not, LUGS need to prove that > it > still has the energy by organizing atleast an AGM, if not monthly meetings > or > installfests. > > I need to say the above since Michael Clark stated that "The fact that > people > want to maintain a division and partisanship is why I'm now hesitant to > offer > any support - as i'm not interested in all of the politics... " in another > email and I know that, that statement is incorrect. > > I know the folks running SLMG well. They are openminded and co-operative. > If > you don't believe me, just attend some SLMG meetups. > > I hope this is enough for now. > > Regards > Anand > > > > > > Right, I nearly forgot about things called themes. OK, so here is one: > > > > http://moinmo.in/ThemeMarket/Explorer > > > > Just kidding. I'd recommend: > > > > http://moinmo.in/ThemeMarket/Mandarin > > > > Or: > > > > http://people.ubuntu.com/~henrik/moin/themes/ with customisation of > course. > > A good read: > > > > > http://blogs.toasttechnology.com.au/roller/teantoast/entry/theme_developeme > >nt_in_moinmoin > > > > Once it's up, do inform us. Then anyone can just go and help rearrange > the > > content around/in the new layout. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Slugnet mailing list > [email protected] > http://wiki.lugs.org.sg/LugsMailingListFaq > http://www.lugs.org.sg/mailman/listinfo/slugnet > The only good asset LUGS has slugnet I guess. For a proper registered society, there should be a yearly AGM, as well as meetings for main committee every 3 months or so. And also frequent meetups monthly or so. For this reason, it is quite a dead body. It will probably need all new committed committee to make it "alive". As for shutting down or so, it might not matter much. Just like linux distributions, there are a lot of distributions, but the strongest survive well. The weak ones might get weaker and weaker and eventually die off. My point, is since it is "virtually dead" due to a number of factors and the uprising of SLMG, there's quite hard even if it is revived. The decisions should be left to the people to decide. And the question to ask, how can it be revived. There ought to be some good business plan/marketing plan. Sometimes there's a need to consolidate the power of Open Source, not only for Enterprise, but for Community too. Therefore too fragmented might be an issue too. Networking across various networks to bridge those companies, schools, individuals is important, as a starting point. There's a lack of this, and sometimes, there will be problems like duplicating each other, one main reason is that, one does not know of the other existence. And also we do not exactly know the troubles and problems of open source clubs in educational institutions(or their existence), and end up the club might be gone eventually even though some of them here can provide help and advise. >From the Sales/Marketing perspective, for Open Source it need to market well. For enterprise, it's already there, but desktop is not there. And for every successful competitor, we need to market at least twice as many as it does, in order to get recognised, and of course, the standard should be comparable to the competitor. We need to look into all perspective, and not restrict to enterprise backend growth, or else linux here will always stuck at the backend. Linux exist in everywhere, beit servers, desktop, handphone, netbook, real-time systems and many others. Linux is there, always there for you. And ya for LUGS and SLMG, if necessary, shut down one, if not, concentrate on one and leave the other till it's "really dead" or "fully alive". Just don't concentrate on both, manpower is critical, and it will eat into a lot of time. Regards John
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