[AUUG-Talk]: Query about "unincorporated successor AUUG's" and AUUGs domain

[David Lloyd]

MODE: Devil's Advocate

Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> On Friday, 15 February 2008 at 11:05:31 +1100, Lawrie Brown wrote:
>> Hi All
>>
>> I'm (sadly) looking at my ballot instructions, but before I proceed
>> to vote, I was wondering whether anyone has actually put up their hand
>> to setup any unincorporated successor "AUUG" like associations that the
>> board are aware of.
> 
> As I've mentioned from time to time, I've been thinking of it, but
> haven't contacted the Board yet.  Board, this is the contact.
> 
> It looks like a case of "now or never", so, for all to see, including
> auug-announce, whom the Board seem to have forgotten:
> 
> - Stephen Rothwell, David Newall and I are prepared to continue the
>   operations of AUUG, specifically the web server, including mail.
> - We'd like to continue the AUUG organization essentially as before,
>   but without charging membership fees for individuals.

AUUG has become irrelevant as well as dead.

> - Where do we get our money from?  We have some now, and it's my
>   contention that we can run the organization on a shoestring.  We've
>   discussed this matter in the past, and some people have come up with
>   non-trivial expenses such as accounting fees and insurance that
>   might need to be paid.  It's my contention that they're not needed:
>   if we don't have any cash flow, we don't need to pay accounting
>   fees, and if we don't have events we won't need insurance.

Agreed.

> - We *would* like to hold events, but that's down the road.  First we
>   need to reestablish a membership base, and then we can see whether
>   the members are interested in being active.

Agreed - but you won't compete against the Linux user groups.

> - A number of people other than David and Stephen have expressed
>   interest in running the downsized AUUG.  I haven't mentioned them
>   because I don't have a formal agreement to do so.  But everybody is
>   welcome to join in.
> 
> In short, it'll be business as usual except for the membership fees.
> We specifically do *not* want to deincorporate AUUG (Board please
> note).

Apart from nostalgic reasons, why do we want AUUG to continue? Do we 
really think the non-Linux vendors will matter any more? The only REAL 
survivor I see is Solaris. HP UX, DEC Unix, AIX and all are going the 
way of COBOL; they're being used but they're not being renewed; they've 
become too expensive or risky to replace. But they are dying.

DSL