David, please tell me you weren't part of this...

[Jamon Camisso]

Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> Marcel Gagne wrote:
>> Not sure who David is, but I'll keep the subject line intact for 
>> threading purposes.
>>   
> 
> I was referring to David Patrick of Linuxcaffe, which was never 
> mentioned by name but clearly the venue of the eavesdropping and the 
> location of Ubuntu advocacy meetings.
> 
> The 10-foot penguin belongs to Linuxcaffe, I believe, and was last seen 
> IIRC at last years' TLUG picnic. I haven't seen it in person but saw a 
> picture of it at the last TLUG exec meeting.
> 
>> If people want to stand a respectable distance outside the ice house, 
>> blow up their inflatable Tux, educate a few people about Linux and 
>> open source, and hand out CDs, that's their right and I don't have any 
>> trouble with that. If, however, the article is representing fact and 
>> people actually meant to trespass, disrupt Microsoft's demo, and cause 
>> property damage, we have a serious problem on our hands.
>>   
> Even the tactic of a press stunt of crashing the Windows event has 
> limited value anymore. Given the speed at which people can download CDs 
> if they want the software, the value of distributing disks isn't what it 
> used to be.

We distributed over 100 cds and people were begging for more... We were 
also quite adamant that no one be approached about Ubuntu, but rather, 
the pitch was "Have you heard of Linux"? After that, out come the cds if 
people are interested. You'd be surprised. The value is in actually 
talking to people, the cd is totally secondary. Face time baby!

> Compounding the problem is that Ubuntu crowd are obsessed with building 
> up the Ubuntu "brand", as distinct from promoting generic Linux. 
> Otherwise, Ubuntu Toronto would be a SIG of TLUG (like NewTLUG) rather 
> than a completely independent group. Before unsubscribing I practically 
> begged Ubuntu folks to participate more with the larger community, only 
> to be largely ignored.

See above. I'm part of said "Ubuntu crowd" but pitched Fedora and Debian 
to a number of people. Admittedly those were the ones who knew about 
Linux. I've even been running Fedora on most of my systems for a few months.

But I think you fail to see what Ubuntu is doing for Linux. Just as 
Stallman was and is rightly pissed about Linux overshadowing GNU, Ubuntu 
may be doing the same in part for Linux. But we mostly all use and call 
it Linux. By this point I think that even the most idealistic can admit 
GNU/Linux is totally not what the public wants to hear and is largely 
academic to most anyways, so go figure. Just plain Linux works for me 
most of the time.

I also managed to gain the interest of 2 people regarding TLUG (they'll 
be at the next meeting), and one is starting a Ryerson LUG (he began 
this before meeting us today). Interesting no?

> Maybe it's just as well. I totally share Marcel's sentiment,

Jamon

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