[TriLUG] an increasingly annoying trend at trilug meetings

[Andrew C. Oliver]

Hola,

Okay this is my 2c (probably about 1 euro by now :-D) worth in between
cleaning up messes (including the gnumeric schema if anyone is bored --
not that its a mess so much as its out of synch).  Last night was the
first time I'd left the house in weeks and is probably the only human
interaction outside my family (yes, you guessed it: "married man" on
opensource).  

I'm on the board at TriJug and it really isn't comparable to the TriLug
as far as our meetings being more formal.  If you were packed in a large
auditorium with all those folks you'd be formal too.  Not to mention the
TriLug has a smaller and more close net opensource style community. 
Please don't see this as me trashing the JUG cause thats certainly not
what I'm all about, but check out the Trijug list.  Its DEAD.  I think
if you read back most of the mails are probably from ME!  

Ironically, when I try and get people to come to the JUG they say that
they like the LUG and that the JUG is too commercial and stodgy and that
they don't know anyone.  Its the sense of community that makes LUG
special and makes people (okay geeks lets face it) come.

The TriJUG in the past has had some REALLY great speakers and yet also
sometimes I feel like I'm going to a corporate free seminar (I don't
just complain, I become speaker coordinator :-D) not that the previous
boards haven't done a great job, just its hard to do both professional
and non commercial.  The only faces I recognize on a regular basis
(other than Chris) are primarily on the board, on a previous board.  And
truth be told half the people come for "have a job need a job".

The TriLug is more like an opensource community and thats why I show
up.  I can read the howtos on line and talk tech on the list, screw
driving to RTP at night.  While I would like to see a few more heavy
hitting speakers (not dimwits like me :-D), I think banter is good.  Its
a community of professional geeks who happen to have an old style
special interest group.  Next, you have the whole linux "subculture".  

Secondly its kind of fun to be heckled by Jermey Katz.  While I'd
probably sit behind him ready to gag him if we had a bigwig speaker with
too much to fit in to a short time, I think probably some of the folks
who come occasionally or are new appreciate having real red hat
hecklers.  Its a good show.  (Even if they've screwed up my video card
support :-D...they gave me sound, I guess I had to trade
something...Maybe I'll forgive them for the stupid RHN pay per view
scheme and by buying the next installment..  I figure 2 releases is
protest enough, not like my $x dollars makes a difference the them, but
hey I had to do something rather then flip the bird!  I think I'll file
a bug sighting "worse-than-microsoft-business-practices" against the
next release regarding the upgrade network.)

As far as bringing a CEO to the meetings, well if the CEO is already
involved in opensource then they should be used to it.  If they aren't
then it really makes little sense to show up at a TriLug meeting with
one because they'll be lost (non-technical, TriLug makes the assumption
you can at least turn on the PC).

As a demonstration, people came last night even though the talk was
scantly announced.

As for the Flowe desktop.  I think its a great sponsor speech (and I can
see me installing it at places if I ever find employment in the
technical field again and I will be working on converting my wife to
Linux from windoze), but with closed source it would not make a great
TriLUG speech IMHO.  I mean I wanna see some guts of the thing at a
TriLUG meeting.  I want to tear it apart and see it crash a few times.

The LUG "culture" is granted not for everyone, but if that went a way
the speakers would have to be damn good before I'd bother to drive to
RTP for it (no offense but I can read it on line and use GAIM for
getting help).

Lastly, I'll stop bringing up  the VI vs Emacs question when you all
agree that emacs is a great operating system but a poor bloated editor. 
Just my 2c.  If it got to be the stodgy thing that some of you have
implied you dream of I'd sure as heck not waste the time to come (even
if you did get cheeseless pizza -- THANK YOU!).  Of course what can I
expect from a bunch of <blech> emacs people.  

-Andy

-- 
www.superlinksoftware.com
www.sourceforge.net/projects/poi - port of Excel format to java
http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4487555.html 
			- fix java generics!


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