On Thu, 2008-06-05 at 16:28 -0600, David Hilton wrote: > Do you think that having any sort of income changes who we are? I > fail to see how this changes the UUG into a 'boring corporate puppet.' > It is possible to become an organization that focuses on solicitation. > From everything I have seen, this is not an issue.
Yes. In the greater scheme of things, one ugly flash ad with poor targeting isn't the end of the world. However, the UUG has a long and proud tradition of being independent. Even when we were under BYUSA's thumb we mostly did things our way because *nix geeks aren't like normal people. The ad was a betrayal of that tradition. We shouldn't have to bribe people to show up with pizza, t-shirts or putty. We should focus on cool presentation. We should prefer those presentation be from UUG members because then we want to encourage learning, we want to rejoice in their hard won knowledge, and we want to turn to them on the list when we need help. If you want a club with strong corporate ties to help you land a safe job at a giant company, there's already one ACM. If you want a bunch of free pizza or free boxed crack (now with even more .Net!) there's already one ACM. We don't need another. The ACM serves a demand and does it well. I am not and never was a part of the market. For me, the UUG was an island of hope before Linux was the success it is today. The UUG should focus on its strengths, not lust after some other club's members. The UUG may not being the biggest club on campus, there may be things we could do better, but we must be careful about how we measure success and what we do to achieve it. A flash ad for Windows jobs is the perfect trifecta of betrayal. It's trying to imitate others to achieve a shallow form of success. It's a proprietary technology. And it's not even Unix! In other words, it wasn't so much the ad as what it symbolized and where it can lead. One does not silently sit back and let a tiny evil snowball into an overwhelming evil, one exposes it for what it is while it is young. -------------------- BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ The opinions expressed in this message are the responsibility of their author. They are not endorsed by BYU, the BYU CS Department or BYU-UUG. ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
