[AUUG-Talk]: Re: The future of AUUG

[David Lloyd]

Well,

Andrew McRae wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-10-19 at 15:52 +1000, Karl Auer wrote:
>> On Fri, 2007-10-19 at 15:43 +1000, Conrad Parker wrote:
>>> On 19/10/2007, Karl Auer <kauer at biplane.com.au> wrote:
>>>> Would Marshall's talk on the
>>>> history of FreeBSD have made it into an LA conference programme?
>>> sure, that's well within the scope of LCA.
>> That's refreshing - and encouraging.
>>
>> Steve spoke of "diehards" on both sides. What reasons would LA have for
>> not wanting a merger with AUUG?
> 
> AUUG's constituency is wider and more inclusive than LA. AUUG by
> tradition and by article aims at any Unix or Open System, e.g AIX or
> Solaris (prior to any GPL3 licensing of Solaris), whereas LA
> excludes non-GPL systems.

The above statement is, at best, ill-informed.

> For instance, no presentation can be given at LCA about anything that
> isn't available under an Open Source licence (maybe even under a GPL
> licence, not sure about that). That effectively means anybody who
> wants to talk about something in a non-GPL kernel (or perhaps
> a non Open Source kernel), cannot do it at LCA.

At least that statment is relatively true.

> Of course, now that we're a few years down the track, the spotty
> teenager next door has grown up and runs a much bigger shop than
> we do, so why should he bother with the old farts? :-)
> The inclusivity _was_ important, but is it any more?
> Not to him, it seems...

AUUG, on the other hand, has maintained, rightly or wrongly, a 
perception that it is the elder, the correct, and that BSD and the other 
open system are better than Linux. I won't argue about the correctness 
of "BSD/Unix (with a big U)" vs "Linux" but I'm happy to argue that AUUG 
accidentally appeared to be condescending in this debate.

> I think that LCA _could_ (if they really wanted) become
> more inclusive, and this could potentially mean that some
> convergence did occur. I am not sure they really care, since their
> own world is big enough.

Actually, LCA is a conference...not an organisation. LA is the 
organisation. Could you clarify what you're trying to compare here?

> It reminds me of Americans, and the rest of the world. Most
> yanks don't care what's out there, because their own country
> is big enough, and to a large extent that is true. However,
> for the longer term health of _everyone_ in the world, it would
> help a lot for them to get educated about having a world view,
> because everyone would then benefit (even themselves).

To be frank, I find that the tone of your e-mail and the way you've 
expressed yourself rather amusing. I wouldn't call it diplomatic; I 
don't think it's diplomacy you're trying to express (if you are, then 
I've missed it).

DSL