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

[steve jenkin]

Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote on 16/2/08 5:12 PM:
> Your information is a little out of date, as I would have expected you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.
>   

Greg, Are you stupid, or do you just try to rile people with craziness
like this??

Are you saying (w.r.t. '*very* professional') that all people in LUG's
are 'professionals' and that all professional topics will be answered by
any LUG?

If you are, you live in a very different Universe to me - and one where
AUUG was long superceeded.
If you aren't, then why the putdown and rejection of my proposal?

AUUG has, since incorporation, provided a focus/forum for people using
Unix systems professionally.
That is, they are paid to do stuff with Unix and the (Unix) work they do
is for *others*.
I.e. AUUG == Unix at Work.

That is not just a long way from the LUG I know, but anti-ethical to it.
LUGs tend to focus on people who own & run Linux for themselves.
Look at linux.conf.au - it does *not* have a work focus, it is all about
the technology.
That doesn't mean that people who earn their living from Linux & Unix
aren't there, just that the conference isn't primarily catering for them
or their special interests...


There *might* be people in the LUG who are *also* do Linux
'professionally' (by my defn.: paid & for-others).
But I don't and wouldn't consider my local LUG as my primary resource
for discussing 'professional' questions.

Things like security, DR & contingency planning, legal liabilities,
privacy act, contract rates, support contracts, vendor agreements,
product comparisons, service providers, maintenance orgs, HVAC &
physical security, offsite-backups, telcos, volume discounts, ... -
these are all topics that arise & get discussed within the
paid-employment context - and I would consider out of bounds for a LUG.

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


So all the people in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Hobart etc can
just mooch on down to Canberra and have a jolly little chinwag with my
mates in Ozlabs??

That not only doesn't scale, but is also patently absurd to suggest in
the context of a discussion on the future of AUUG - this was not "what
steve wants for himself."

What I was trying to illustrate was:
 - there is more than one Unix, the world-of-work is far from Linux only
 - for paid-work systems there are many important non-free programs -
often non-linux
 - there are many paid-work problems that I haven't seen discussed on my
local LUG. For owner-operator and small installations, many of the
problems just don't arise - and discussions aren't relevant or
appropriate on a LUG.


-- 
Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist.
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA

sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin