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

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Saturday, 16 February 2008 at 11:33:23 +1100, steve jenkin wrote:
> David Lloyd wrote on 15/2/08 11:15 PM:
>>> - 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.
> Where do *professional* Admins and Unix-o-philes go at the moment?
>
> This is the AUUG niche - "where do you go when your LUG or LA can't
> answer your questions?"
>
> Professionals have a whole slew of different questions and different
> classes of problems/concerns:
>
> ...

Your information is a little out of date, as I would have expected you
to know.  Many of the Linux people I know are *very* professional.

> If you are working in a mixed AIX/Solaris environment with IBM
> Tivoli or HP Open View or CA Unicenter, a LUG or Linux Australia
> aren't where you'd expect to find answers...

You could certainly start with your mates at Ozlabs for the first
scenario, but in general you're right, just for other reasons.

On Saturday, 16 February 2008 at 11:32:11 +1030, Andrew Rutherford wrote:
>
> On 15/02/2008, at 10:45 PM, David Lloyd wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
> Assumptions upon assumptions! (Yes, I know you're playing devil's
> advocate here, so that's expected. :-)  There are significant areas
> that Linux User Groups don't cover:
>
> - Operating Systems that are not owned/driven by a vendor and aren't
> Linux, such as the various *BSD O/S's.

s/\*//

Most LUGs are quite happy with BSD people.  It's the commercial aspect
that they don't like.

> - Mac OS/X. You say the only real survivor is Solaris, but Apple is
> introducing Unix by "stealth" into the general populace. I say
> "stealth" because although it's not hidden, many average end users
> don't know it's there.

... and those who do have difficulty finding it :-(

> - People supporting commercial applications or even non-commercial
> applications in a commercial environment on Linux-based systems are
> often made to feel unwelcome in Linux user groups because of
> ideological issues against commercialism from a small minority of
> people in Linux user groups.

Yes, this is the big point.

You'll recall that back in the days when you were on the board and
donated the venue for the board meetings, I was trying very hard to
get AUUG and Linux Australia to merge.  I failed; there was
significant resistance on both sides, in particular the ideological
attitude of the Linux groups that freedom is more important than
technology.  That's a shame, but I don't see it changing in the near
future.  If it did, I would continue to advocate a merger.

> AUUG has a strong history in welcoming all of these users. We need
> to push that we are not just a variation on a Linux user group, that
> we offer real benefits to a different group of people.

What benefits we offer is a different matter.  But it should give us
the chance to get together like-minded people.

> FYI, my organisation does software development of commercial
> applications on Mac laptops to be installed on predominantly FreeBSD
> servers. Much as we quite happily support the same software running
> on Linux as well, we've always found AUUG members much more relevant
> to problem solving that Linux user group members. We've also hired
> people I met at AUUG conferences.

This is a good example.  It's not that the Linux people are less
professional, but they have other priorities.

Greg
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