> Okay, this was funny for a while, but I think we have finally beat
> this dead horse enough. I think Evan would make a great President of
> the UUG (as would any of the other candidates), but I would *really*
> like to know what the next President will be doing for the club over
> the next year. Getting the club out of BYUSA is a nice start, but we
> also need to know a bit more about the platforms. Specifically, I am
> personally interested in:

Ok, I have to admit that I have had a little too much fun with this... :-)

> - What will you be doing to help promote the awareness and use of Free
> Software and Open Standards by students and faculty on campus?

Promoting Free software is great, but I don't think it is the main focus 
of the club. I love Free Software and use it 95% of the time, but this is the
Unix Users Group so we need to be tolerant (I know this can be hard) to 
people who use something that isn't 100% "free" (in the 10,000 variations 
of the definition). 

I think that the best way that we have seen to spread the doctrine of Stallman
is through installfests; people are already interested in Linux/OSS, they
just don't know where to get started. We don't need to tell them how great
it is; they have heard us give our soap box opinions. People just want help.

(I'm not bashing free software, I just want it to remain *part* of what
the UUG is all about)

> - What problems does the club currently face, and what do you plan to
> do to confront them?

In the last year or two (Thanks to Art, Dave, and many others) the club 
has exploded (in a good sense). I think the most important things are to:

1) keep the mailing lists active and non-contentious
2) have 1 or 2 good installfests a semester and 2 or 3 good meetings a month
3) keep developing the website and use it

> - How do you intend to increase club membership?

Installfests and booths in the Talmage and Clyde buildings; after each one
we have huge jumps in the numbers of new members.
 
> - What current activities do you feel need to be done away with? What
> activities would you like to introduce?

I think the SSS campaign was great but we focused our energy on the wrong 
crowd. If we cater to the cs/engineering/IT people we will get the most people
using Linux/Unix for the amount of effort we put in.

> - What kinds of things would you like to do to increase coorperative
> activities among clubs related to the UUG, such as the ASM and ACM?

Buy them out and/or conqueror them. Sorry... Um, I think that the meeting
we had with the ACM was great and people learned a lot about
our club. What I'm worried about is moving from a technical group to a more 
general "hang out club" like the ACM. People should come to our meetings because
they want to learn, not because they want pizza and a t-shirt (which is why
most people are members of the ACM).

> - Are you for or against changing the name of the club to the BYU
> Linux Users Group (BLUG)? Why?

In the past this has brought up some strong feelings, so I don't want to get
many people fired up. I think that if we stay generic with the term Unix, we 
can still be supportive of the Linux, BSD, and other Unix users. I think that
in the end the name isn't the most important thing about the club.

Just my 2% tax...

-Evan

-- 
/********************************************************************\
       Evan McNabb: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
                     http://evan.mcnabbs.org
             System Administrator, CS Department, BYU
 GnuPG Fingerprint: 53B5 EDCA 5543 A27A E0E1 2B2F 6776 8F9C 6A35 6EA5
\********************************************************************/

Attachment: pgp00000.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Reply via email to