[AUUG-Talk]: Re: AUUG: Time to pull the plug?

[David Newall]

Greg Black wrote:
> On 2006-09-14, David Newall wrote:
>   
>> AUUG shares a common spirit with UNIX, which is importantly 
>> characterised by openness and sharing, and that spirit has moved on.
>>     
>
> I disagree.  The spirit is not exclusively attached to AUUG and
> Unix, but it has not moved on -- perhaps it has spread a little
> further.
>   
I expressed myself less carefully than I should.  I didn't mean to imply 
that the spirit has left AUUG.  It clearly hasn't.  But it has grown, 
shall I say, and the growth is almost all in 'open source,' and almost 
none in 'unix'.

> I've been to many more AUUG conferences than Linux ones, but I
> have not seen anything to make me favour a Linux event over an
> AUUG one.
>   
I guess you've never been to an LCA.  Think of the great AUUG 
conferences of the 80's and you'll be pretty close to the mark.

> Early today, I was wondering if it was perhaps time to wind up
> AUUG as was suggested in the message that started this thread.
> Reading the above makes me sure that I want AUUG to continue and
> that I want to be a part of that.
>   
I don't know what your particular objections are to Linux, you quite 
properly didn't say, but I have a very strong idea that, were you to 
utter them, they would sound very much like the objections that BSDers 
have to System V, or vice versa.  Truly, Linux deserves the mantle of 
"the third UNIX", because it generates the same religious bigotry that 
held UNIX back from becoming mainstream for 20 years.  Linux's good luck 
was gaining mainstream respectability, and I think that was just 
timing.  People might be uttering "BSD" instead of "Linux" had things 
worked out just a tiny bit differently.

> One minor final note: the message I'm replying to was written in
> a way that makes responding difficult.  ...  That would involve separating
> distinct ideas into their own paragraphs, for example.
Yours is the second comment I've seen on that theme.  Despite this, I'm 
still comfortable with my choice of a single paragraph.  I feel I 
expounded upon only one idea.  Editorial tastes can differ.