James A. Stroble wrote:
On Tue, 2005-11-08 at 19:03 -1000, Jim Thompson wrote:
LUAU (Linux Users AnonymoUs) is mostly (at this point) a mailing list
(hosted on HOSEF's server) for linux, free and open source advocacy in
Hawaii. There used to be meetings, but these have largely died out.
(Much like many other Linux advocacy groups on the mainland and elsewhere.)
Jim, is that true? Did Netcraft confirm it? Lugs are dead?
I've seen LUGs largely die in Austin, Houston, D/FW and elsewhere. It
may not be universal.
Note that I said "many".
Linux is changing. LUGs used to be able to survive on "install fests"
and bringing ESR in to speak, they can't now. The "newness" phase of
Linux has passed. Once this raison d'etre is gone, the group's
membership nosedives.
This is where some of the brilliance of Scott's efforts with HOSEF begin
to shine. At first glance, HOSEF's mission is spreading linux via
installs that will be used where computers didn't exist before (Hawaii's
schools). The real mission of HOSEF is to help establish a legacy of
Hawaii residents who are well-versed in the art and methods of "Open
Source" (including Free Software) as a way of helping bootstrap Hawaii
out of the
Ubuntu is a nice distro, its everything Debian should have been (and
more). Too bad the Debian people fell asleep at the wheel. There is
a lot of local advocacy for Fedora Core, due to some involvement in the
Fedora project by folks at UH.
Ah, an opening for a distro war. I don't think Debian fell asleep at
the wheel, they are just at a differnent wheel.
I too run Debian. Its the distro run on the machine that allows me to
live in Hawaii. Litterally every dollar I make (and a few more) flows
through a Debian machine. I'm not anti-debian.
However, Debian failed to stay on the curve for a very long time. Had
Debian continued to innovate, then there would have never been an
opening for distros like Ubuntu. Even Ian Murdock admits that Debian
stubbed its toe, though he has hope that 'sarge' will remedy the situation.
I personally run Ubuntu and FreeBSD 6.0 at home, FreeBSD because I
develop on it, and Ubuntu because the 'next' project is linux based.
(More about that in the future, I'm sure.)
Josh, I also endorse the idea that you 'show up' to some set of HOSEF
activities. There is a calendar of same on http://www.hosef.org
jim