introducing metalug

[John Van Ostrand]

On Sun, 2006-10-29 at 15:09 -0400, David J Patrick wrote:
> 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 ?

This is an extension of some ideas put forth by Richard Weait and Paul
Nijjar. Richard has been cross pollinating lugs and FLOSS groups for
quite a while now. He and Paul have ideas of meta mailing lists and have
put prototypes in place without the need for a larger entity. The other
initiative of theirs (please excuse me if I'm forgetting other
contributors) was a combined calendar of events.

I like the idea of having a large and demonstrably strong advocacy group
for open source. But those currently exist in FSF, Linux International
and OSDN, even the EFF counts to some degree. Can a metalug bring
something new to this?

Off the top of my head I see that this would largely benefit small LUGs.
Those lugs may not have the resources or man-power to build, develop and
maintain a large web site. I could even see medium sized lugs taking
advantage of this. The KWLug recently put in place a new web site and it
was a tremendous effort. Some of the features that we wanted are still
not in place. If there were a free hosting that provided what we needed
we may have taken advantage of it. The big ones for us were
comprehensive calendars, multi-lug announcements on mailing lists, and
forum-email gateways. This would have to support domain name hosting as
well.

The simple form of providing a list of lugs and lug hosting efforts is
feasible. There are lots of other small-lug issues a meta lug can solve
by centralizing information.

The more advanced form, corporate and government advocacy, I think is
beyond the scope, at least for now. It's an endeavour that would require
capital and lots of man-hours. This money would require a large effort
to collect as donations, or it would require corporate sponsorship which
could be undermining.
-- 
John Van Ostrand <john-Da48MpWaEp0CzWx7n4ubxQ at public.gmane.org>
Net Direct Inc.

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