Request for Comments

[Colin McGregor]

"Robert Brockway" <robert-5LEc/6Zm6xCUd8a0hrldnti2O/JbrIOy at public.gmane.org> on Saturday, June 05, 2004
12:54 AM wrote:

> So the question is - is it ok for a person to make a presentation to TLUG
> on a commercial product that their company produces?

Conditionally yes. If this were say a Microsoft (or any other firm that
produces products that will NOT work with Linux) the answer would be I would
only listen if they paid me to do so. In this case we have a product that
does work with Linux so it should be considered under the same terms of any
other potential topic, i.e.:

- Will this help us better understand current technology?
- Will this help us understand the forces driving technology forward and
where things are going?
- Will this information help us solve at least one real world problem?
- Is this more that just a sales pitch designed to move product?
- Will this information hold value for a large percentage of the membership
(i.e.: if the topic only has value to one of the people who shows up at a
typical meeting it isn't worth doing)?

Now, there are likely other points that should be added. Depending on the
speaker and the topic I can be happy with a talk that answered yes to just
one of the above points (though more than one yes is very desirable).
Depending on the details of the topic your speaker MIGHT with their product
information might answer yes to all of the above points.

Colin McGregor

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