Okay. All this discussion about what the UUG should be called has caused me to think again (second time this month). It hurts, so I ask everyone to stop right away, and never bring it up again :)
Personally, I don't like the idea of changing the name of the group. True, most of us do run Linux (when my 22 month old comes into my office, he shouts TUX, grabs my penguin off my desk, and puts him in my fridge!). It's true that even after changing the name, we probably would still allow heathen users of other *nix varieties to still associate with the group. It's true that with a new name, we may entice a different crowd. It may even be true that all those other *nix flavors will go away soon, never to return. I think that the name of the group really needs to be simple, and should fit with the purpose of our club (see club charter at http://uug.byu.edu/mission.php). The purpose is currently to "Provide a forum and means for discussion, discovery and development of Unix and Linux." To change the name of the group to include Free software or Open Source, or to limit the group (even in name) changes the purpose of the club. If that's really what we want to do (change our purpose), I think that should be the issue, not using a name change to change our purpose. I think that despite all the other issues, the purpose of the club hasn't changed. We're still Discussing, Discovering, and Developing (hereafter D^3) Unix and Linux. Linux is a kernel (operating system), not all the applications (though I do think that referring to everything as Linux makes sense most of the time). Looking back at our old discussions, I think that fewer of our mail threads deal with D^3 the kernel than D^3 Unix applications that happen to run under Linux. I agree that there are also a number of Free/Open threads (and other interesting topics) on the list. In the past, this has been handled in a number of ways: 1 - A good old-fashioned flame-war! 2 - Great discussions that tragically never end with either side giving in 3 - Deletions of entire email threads, or hurried calls of "man procmailex" for filtering suggestions 4 - Calls for Club name changes 5 - Creation of side lists that are probably under-utilized 6 - List members taking offense and unsubscribing (some return, some don't) 7 - Long emails from Frank that nobody reads anyway, since he's in everyone's .procmailrc file with a delivering recipe to /dev/null [1] :) 8 - ... If the UUG is no longer serving its purpose, then we should look into creating a new group with a charter tuned to what we want to do and focus on. If we still have a purpose, lets fill that need. Many of us still like the original purposes, and don't want to see our beloved club go away because some people want to change our club purpose. Get your own club (group, that is--not stout heavy stick)! If the threads that are unrelated to our main purpose begin to crowd out the threads that are related to D^3 (see above) Unix and Linux, something needs to be done (see Jacob 5:37 - http://scriptures.lds.org/jacob/5#37). That _may_ be one of the following (or something completely different): - The Club is no longer needed as presently constituted (verse 49) - Club leadership needs to help everyone stay focused (verse 54) - Those who want to change the purpose to something different need to start their own club with their own purposes (I'll leave this as an exercise to the reader :) The name of the club should reflect the stated club purposes, and should be meaningful to both members and not-yet-members (Microsoft users? :). I believe our current name (UUG in case you forgot) does that well enough. If most people believe that the name needs to be changed, but that our club purpose should remain approximately the same, we should consider something like the BYU Linux/Unix Group (LUG). When I was in Portland, our Linux Users Group (the _other_ PLUG - www.pdxlinux.org) changed names to the Portland Linux/Unix Group, since the group served more than just Linux (http://www.pdxlinux.org/articles/plug-history.html). In summary (don't you all love summaries that come at the end of something?): I like the current purpose of the club, and I don't think the purpose has changed or needs to change. I think the current name reflects the main points well enough. If people want to discuss side issues, that's fine, but to a point. Instead of changing our reason for existing, create a new club with new purposes. If you act quickly enough, you might be able to get the old Phantom before I make someone get it out of the office :) "And thank you for your support." (http://www.tvacres.com/admascots_bartles.htm) Frank --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frank Sorenson - KD7TZK CSR Computer Science Department Brigham Young University [EMAIL PROTECTED] [1] :O * [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
