On 05 June 2009 pm 23:02:59 Ray Rashif wrote: > Thanks very much for the insight, Anand. It answers (and affirms for those > that I've anticipated) a couple of questions I've always wanted to ask but > which somehow ended up escaping my mind due to ignorance. > > Speaking of the $10 entrance fee, I vaguely recall a discussion in one of > the local hardware forums (HwZ?) some two or three years ago. At that time > I was only a passive enthusiast, as far as local OSS matters were concerned > (and unfortunately still remain to be until I attend a meetup/meeting/event > and contribute something useful). The general tone of the discussion leaned > towards disfavour, so I understand that part. However, how is that any > different from the current membership fee (which is 6 times more)? Isn't it > actually a necessecity for any kind of organisation, however big or small, > to charge membership/entrance fees in order to be able to at least subsist?
I don't agree with that. Organizations such as LUGS survive on goodwill. IBM used to provide meeting space FOC. There were a few member who used to pay the $60 fee and some students , the $25 or so fee. SingTel offered free server and unlimited bandwidth hosting. Most of the work was done by volunteers for free (sys admin, running the lists etc etc). Some members even contributed more than their fair share (I think Harish and Michael Clark contributed something like $1000 each to pull LUGS out of the mess earlier) Orgs do not pay taxes. Orgs are supposed to look for free stuff. Vendors such as IBM, Redhat, Novell, Oracle , Edu such as SMU, NUS etc can provide other forms of resources. If LUGS were to offer, say @lugs.org.sg mail address for a small fee, and maybe provide members web/blog hosting, many would be willing to signup. There could be some revenue there. There could be other income sources too. I think we should have two categories of members: One paying members -purely voluntary , probably only these can vote, another, non-paying members. No other discrimination, please. If we are like everyone else, what makes us different? we can as well bootup Vista Home Premium and be happy forever. > > If LUGS did "close down", wouldn't that contribute to a failing image of > Linux/OSS advocacy in the country? It may be a baseless point of view, but > from what I see and hear, LUGs around the world play active roles to a > certain extent. SLMG, like you said, is just an informal meetup group. It > provides an avenue for keen enthusiasts to interact and participate without > being bound by the formalities of being a "registered member". As such, I > believe it shouldn't be called a "sister organisation", but shown as a > participating group that supplements the LUG with an informal platform for > interaction. Let me ask you this question: How many of the old LUGS people, including the LUGS committee members do you see at SLMG? Zilch. I think no one is seriously interested in reviving LUGS. Today, for all practical purposes, the group most active in Linux in SG *IS* SLMG (and next is Team Ubuntu) and SLMG is growing to collaborate with other OSS groups to form an umbrella org called FOSA. > > With that said, however, I note that it wouldn't be a problem if SLMG were > to become the local LUG instead. We are, after all, the same people > interested in the same subject. Yes, I agree. > Yet, the lack of a dedicated committee > (being the result of a free-beer-and-curry-puffs-organisation) poses > certain deficiencies. There has to be a set of official terms (like > membership dues) for the organisation to maintain its significant role. > Ideas like > http://ubuntu.sg/node/110 can then be implemented with a higher success > rate. From that, we end up coming back to the idea of a LUG - so square one > again =/ With FOSA becoming a registered org, the lack of an official label is also gone. You probably do not know that the last year's Software Freedom Day was a purely SLMG effort, but SLMG went to LUGS only to "borrow" the LUGS brand name. Regards Anand _______________________________________________ Slugnet mailing list [email protected] http://wiki.lugs.org.sg/LugsMailingListFaq http://www.lugs.org.sg/mailman/listinfo/slugnet
