Linux World / Network World 2006

[Evan Leibovitch]

William Park wrote:

>Speaking for myself (and few others outside GTALUG), my problems are
>    1. they want street address of TLUG members.
>    2. they want no demoing of TLUG members' work or business.
>
>2.  This is my main problem.
>
William, thanks for the answer. However, IMO this shouldn't be a problem.

The TLUG community booth _should_ be the promotion of the group, not the 
side businesses of its members. At times the TLUG booth at previous LWs 
was IMO an embarrassment, with all sorts of business cards on the booth 
EXCEPT for any that pointed people to TLUG! It's understandable that 
plumcom may have seen past behaviour as abuse of the non-profit area, 
which may explain the new explicit (and completely appropriate) demands.

A TLUG booth, stripped of commercial function, _should_ be seen as a 
welcome opportunity. So far I've seen precious little on this list to 
address the fundamental questions Matt and others have repeatedly asked 
regarding why GTALUG exists, other than to organize and control for its 
own sake. A LinuxWorld booth would be the perfect location to hold a 
membership drive. But doing so requires vision and programs, neither of 
which have yet become apparent to those of us watching from outside the 
GTALUG bubble.

So far the most concise statement of GTALUG's mandate / rationale / 
vision I've seen was stated by Bill during the thread started in July 
about "value to the community". Unfortunately that mandate, as I read 
it, insulted rather than inspired the community being asked to support 
the incorporation:

>you have to accept the fact that this organization is what runs the mechanisms that allow this community to function. That is the mandate of GTALUG.
>

The choice of words was significant to me, considering the 
definitiveness of the statement. GTALUG is not here to "assist" the 
community, nor to "enable", "empower", "facilitate", etcetera. It's here 
to "ALLOW the community to function". To me this is sheer arrogance, and 
confirms rather than dispels Henry's suspicions of empire-building.

I for one do *not* accept the "fact" presented above. If the existing 
"infrastructure" resources of the unincorporated TLUG were to be 
withdrawn, new sources would arise to take their place immediately, 
_without_ demands of incorporation as a precondition. I'd offer some of 
those resources myself. The community doesn't NEED an organized LUG, but 
it's waiting to see what incorporation would provide beyond what already 
exists to see if it WANTS one.

Now it appears to come out that the big impediment to exhibiting at 
LinuxWorld for free is that the non-profit org is being asked to refrain 
from engaging in for-profit demonstrations:

>  Few people (including me) are more than
>    willing to pay for the booth.  But, idea floated around that we
>    should each chip in and merge into single booth.  Everybody agreed
>    that GTALUG is ideal umbrella to be under.
>  
>
The idea that people would be willing to "chip in", rather than abide by 
the no-commercial-use requirement of a free booth, suggests that GTALUG 
is intended to be used as an umbrella to finance a commercial booth at 
the show. Is this the case? I'm not saying that such function is 
illegitimate, but doing this sends a much clearer message to the 
community about the vision of GTALUG than anything I've seen to date.


- Evan


PS: One possibility for error here is in a potential wording 
misinterpretation. William stated that plumcom demanded "no demoing of 
TLUG members' work or business" at a free booth. The word "work" could 
be interpreted as commercial effort OR it could mean any kind of work 
including an open source project. I agree with the restriction on 
commercial use, but I don't think that Plum would object to the showing 
of LUG-endorsed members' open source projects. That ambiguity can be 
corrected with a simple wording change that I'm sure the Coles could 
agree to.


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