[Talk] Some thoughts on AUUG, LUG's and their future

[Greg Black]

Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:

| On Thursday,  4 July 2002 at 12:31:30 +1000, Greg Black wrote:
| > Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
| >
| >> On Wednesday,  3 July 2002 at  1:04:36 +1000, Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
| >>> [quoting Steve Jenin]
| >>>> - Rebrand AUUG EG: - "Aust Unix/Linux/BSD User Group"
| >>> This I really disagree with, it smacks of Stallman's push for
| >>> GNU/ABC/DEF/GHI/IJK/Linux.  If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck,
| >>> and walks like a duck, it's a duck.
| >>>
| >>> Extend it, yes, as we did when we became the "Australian UNIX and Open
| >>> Systems User Group", but keep the AUUG name/symbol as it is.
| >>
| >> I have a concern about the term "Open Systems".  It has a late 80s,
| >> early 90s smell about it.  I think that we should remove that term,
| >> but it's not clear what to replace it with.  The best I have come up
| >> with so far has been "AUUG: Australian UNIX and related systems User
| >> Group".  Comments?  Improvements?
| >
| > Ick.  As far as I'm concerned, it should be "Australian Unix
| > Users Group" -- where the term "unix" (capitalised in this case
| > because it's a word in the group name) means the versions of
| > UNIX sanctioned by this week's owner of the name; all the BSD
| > variants; all the Linux flavours; the new Mac thingy; and
| > anything else that quacks like a duck (sorry, offers the basic
| > functionality and style of "unix").
| 
| Right, but that's a little longer than my version :-)  We're looking
| for something we can put at places like http://www.auug.org.au/.  BTW,
| suggestions for improvement of the web site and pages are more than
| welcome.

OK, I skimped on the details a bit.  Here it is in full.

On the home page at <http://www.auug.org.au/>, it now says:

    Welcome to the AUUG Web Server. AUUG is the Australian UNIX
    and Open Systems User Group. AUUG is a national body, with
    chapters that organise local activities in most capital
    cities.

Replace that with:

    Welcome to the AUUG Web Server. AUUG is the Australian Unix
    Users Group. AUUG is a national body, with chapters that
    organise local activities in most capital cities.

Where it has the word "Unix", make that a link to a page that
describes what we mean, more or less as I put it earlier, but
perhaps expanded and prettied-up a little.  And put one of those
"alt" tags on the link that pops up a little thing that says
something like "Our definition of `Unix' in all its variety" so
people know why they should follow the link at least once.

That gets us back to our short snappy name with a proper fit for
the "AUUG" acronym, abandons all the touchy-feely open systems
and similar stuff, and lets us get on with the real business of
deciding how to make AUUG take a more visible and positive role
in our world.

Greg