introducing metalug

David J Patrick davidjpatrick-rieW9WUcm8FFJ04o6PK0Fg at public.gmane.org
Sun Oct 29 19:09:03 UTC 2006


Years ago, as a direct result of my frustrations with proprietary
software vendors, I discovered linux. A boxed version of Mandrake 7.2
was my gateway to the world of Open Source (yes, RMS, GNU too) and I
never looked back. In my earlier explorations, the desktop software
was, to put it gently, not-ready-for-prime-time, but I recognised the
underlying philosophies; freedom-as-in-speech, global colabouration,
gravitation towards best practices and open standards, stuck with it,
and was proven correct in my belief that the development model would
survive and flourish and result in software that was good, for all the
right reasons.

At first, it was lonely. I didn't meet another linux user for a year,
or so. I would boot back into Win98 (because I couldn't yet connect to
the net) and researched my way through RPM hell and code that
shouldn't have been called beta, and to burn .isos.

Then I found TLUG and, even though cries for help were often met by
the RTFM squad, and threads that would go immediately OT, or radio
silence, it was encouraging to know that there existed like minded
individuals in my immediate area. Ifn I wuz crazy, I wasn't the only
one. Direct contact with a handful of generous souls kept me on the
path and (eventually) I was able to reformat my Windows partition.

Now linux is mainstream (in a grass rootsy, underground way) and I'm
on the Board of Directors of GTAlug, run linuxcaffe; a local coffee
shoppe with WiFi and more distros than you can shake a stick at. We've
been open for about a year and a half. Momentum is building. The
energy and enthusiasm for FLOSS is undeniable, and linuxcaffe may seem
like the eye of the hurricane.. but it ain't ! This thing's
everywhere. It's like there was some dormant gene just waiting for the
technology to catch up.

LUGs happen. Some of us will grok FLOSS and then have a need to gather
with other birds of a feather. This is a global happening and anywhere
that has electricity and an internet connection, has (or will soon
have) LUGs. This is good,

but,
user groups are naturally and necessarily geographically dispersed.
There is no consistent form and communication within a LUG is often ad
hoc. Communication IN BETWEEN lugs is spotty to non-existent. This
misses brilliant opportunities. Small groups of like minded
individuals gather in small groups around the planet and say pretty
much the same things to each other;  "in only more people knew about
this...", "if we could only scrape together some resources...", "if we
could just contact the Big Players..." and "this linux thing is
actually pretty cool, isn't it !". Although linux.ca and linux.com
both post large lists of lugs, inter-lug communication is dismal, as
demonstrated by our experience here in Toronto, where the synergies
between GTAlug, CLUE, NewTLUG, WestLUG, KWLug, are all but unrealised.

So I introduce to you, my local lug,  metalug.

It's a Linux User Group whose focus is Linux User Groups.

As yet, it's all in my head, but I've taken the liberty of registering
a few domains, and here's what I'd like to do with them;

metalug.com - the global lug site, that attempts to track lugs (and if
they exist, other metalugs) worldwide.

metalug.org - a gathering place for lug resources; website CMSs,
templates, membership management software, documents, how-to, and the
like.

metalug.net - a gateway for interlug communication, mailing list
hosting / interlug announcements etc.

metalug.ca - the Canadian metalug, listing all known Canadian LUGs
with maps and contact info and Canadian Interlug forums.

These will all be sister-sites, with seamless links in between, but
clear and distinct separation of function. OTOH, a single domain, with
sub-domains, may prove the saner way, and the other domains will
simply re-direct. idonno.

It's insanely ambitious, yes, but if we never start, it'll never happen.
No sites have been set-up, no DNS pointed, no domain hosts chosen and
this is the very first salvo. Do you like the idea ? Is it worth
putting effort into ? Does it exist elsewhere ?

discuss,
;-)
djp
-- 
djp-tnsZcVQxgqO2dHQpreyxbg at public.gmane.org
www.linuxcaffe.ca
geek chic and caffe cachet
326 Harbord Street,
Toronto, M6G 3A5,
(416) 534-2116
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
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