"Matthew Weier O'Phinney" <[email protected]> writes:
What about thinking of it in terms of "the unix way" -- which focuses
on discrete tools, piped together to create complex or new systems?
That almost perfectly describes what you discuss above -- and still
keeps the "u" in vague.
Well sure, it's a good design philosophy. And one of which I'm
supportive, of course. :)
But please don't miss my point: I'm not saying "reject unix", I'm saying
"embrace interesting (potentially non-unix) technology".
("VermonT Area Group of the-Unix-way Enthusiasts" is pretty horrible,
you have to admit. ;)
Brett Johnson <[email protected]> writes:
You can't possibly be enthused about Unix without FOSS, BSD, Linux, Mac, etc.
These have played a large role in the history of Unix and it's derivatives.
Furthermore, I
think when one says Unix most people don't think solely of the traditional
HP-UX, Solaris and AIX Unix flavors. Maybe I'm alone (or maybe I'll have the
older members
swinging at me with bottles defending the reality they grew up with), but to me
the term Unix also includes its offshoots, clones and related software (those
that follow
the principles of Unix). There may be differences between being at an HP-UX
terminal and a CentOS terminal, but either way they both largely hold true to
many of the Unix
principles and are functionally very similar.
I think the term Unix is still relevant. My two cents anyway...
Marc Farnum Rendino <[email protected]> writes:
"UNIX" is not just a specific product, but a way of life - and it begat OSS,
Linux, Mac OS X, etc.
It's a living, changing ecosystem and there's nothing wrong with continuing to
nod to the founders. :)
As I mentioned, VAGUE has expanded in exactly this way.
I think an explicit focus on FOSS is a core part of VAGUE, and/or
whatever entity I'm suggesting.
But I propose we go further, still … in some undefined way.
I usually subscribe more to the Bill Hicks school of marketing, but I do
know this: no one cares to seek out a "unix enthusiasts" group, even if
they want to do things in the unix tradition, and especially if they
don't know that, yet. :)
Tony Harris <[email protected]> writes:
I would suggest that changing the focus of the group from Unix (or better:
*nix) enthusiasts to essentially technology enthusiasts would produce a totally
different group
than what we have. I don't often make VAGUE meetings, I confess, but I have
tended to see the group as one that is focused on Linux/Unix/BSD/etc.-based
FOSS, including a
wide range of topics from system administration, programming, and user
standpoints. I think there's a real need for having such a group, and I feel
it would be a shame if
VAGUE became so vaguely defined, so to speak, that it lost its focus on FOSS
advocacy. Perhaps if there's enough desire for such a wider group, it might be
worth starting
another one, and letting VAGUE stay with the more *nix/FOSS hacker focus.
Rubin Bennett <[email protected]> writes:
I share the opinion that we should not lose focus - there are plenty of
other groups out there.
Besides, I always thought VAGUE meant Vermont Area Group of Unix-like
(ish?) Enthusiasts!
However, if we as a group feel like we aren't vibrant enough (thus the
idea of a moniker change), then I would suggest getting our collective
arses in gear and breathe some life into the organization we've got :)
I agree that it would be a different group of people; I think the change
in focus would allow for a larger, better group. A superset of VAGUE. A
rising tide lifts all boats, and having more regular meetings over a
wider set of topics, many of which are "VAGUE-focused" would lead to
more VAGUE meetings than we've been able to sustain. Said another way:
would you rather have a group that had good content every month, 6 of
which were "unixy", or a VAGUE that meets on and off maybe for 6 months
of the year, and with only 3 presentations?
A good example is http://twitter.com/DanBowles/status/24380896554 .
Would someone start something as narrow as a jquery user's group
(something I would imagine destined for failure in the sparse hills of
Vermont) if there was a friendly pan-technology interest group to talk
about it within? The Microsoft/.NET ecosystem is large enough to be
self-sustaining, and I don't know how the PHP guys do it, but they seem
vibrant. :)
What about "unix enthusiasts" would draw in a web developer who develops
on a Mac and deploys to Google App Engine? Or a Java developer on
Windows (who's operational peer might deploy on Linux, but that's not
her concern)? Or someone setting up MySQL on their office Windows
server? Or someone making HTML5+WebGL+js apps that run on Android
tablets? Or people doing hardware hacking on Arduino boards? Or people
building web-services for open street map/GIS data?
(Those last two examples being two of the most-successful VAGUE meetings
of the last couple of years, btw. :)
If these sorts of meeting started happening under the VAGUE moniker,
would people complain? I don't think so, as some already did. But it
does invite the question about the scope of a "unix enthusiasts" group
… and here we are. :)
Of course the unix tradition is important. Technologies with liberal,
foss licenses. Projects that are open rather than closed. That value
privacy and user autonomy. That respect the creator/user's ownership of
their data, instead of the site's ownership of their data. All those
"unix tradition" things, that we must struggle to promote, but without
the (frankly, dying) attachment to "unix".
I seek to frame it in a way that is both broader than VAGUE, but still
focused concisely and concretely. One where all the (copious! ;) VAGUE
mailing list traffic would not be out of place, and "VAGUE" meetings
would still be held. But that was also perhaps more discoverable to and
inclusive of people of various backgrounds to participate, leading to a
more self-sustainable community.
I'll stand up and offer to host a November meeting at rbTech if there's
interest in a field trip out to EastMont. We could demo our *really
damn cool* phone system (the non-FOSS Digium SwitchVOX SMB with the FOSS
Asterisk as the base), and/ or talk about our FOSS WANBalancer multi-WAN
firewall system that we build (and developed) here.
Thank you for offering. We need more like this, of presentations,
content, venues, &c.
