[Beds] NeTraverse LUG Program

[Neil Darlow]

Hi All,

I have received the following e-mail from NeTraverse giving brief details of 
their LUG sponsorship program. It's obviously a carrot to boost sales of their
commercial software product Win4Lin.

I believe that the LUG policy on such matters as these should be to remain 
neutral. I myself, and others on the list, side with the Free Software ethic 
and may not be in favour of the LUG being involved with such a scheme.

Conversely, we should accept that the LUG exists for the benefit of all Linux 
users and we should respect their wishes if they choose to use non-free 
software.

Sometimes the Free Software ethic can be detrimental to the end user e.g. 
Debian's reduced-functionality OpenOffice, to make it DFSG compliant, may
be construed by some as a crippling of functionality.

I would ask members to read the attached e-mail and decide whether it has any 
merit for the LUG as a whole before commenting. Bear in mind that by adopting
sponsorship of this nature we are seen as endorsing the product, something we 
should consider very carefully.

Regards,
Neil Darlow M.Sc. -- Beds LUGmaster
-- 
Open Standards/Free Software Consultants http://www.darlow.co.uk/
ICQ: 135505456  E-Mail, Jabber, MSNM: see following GnuPG identity
1024D/531F9048 1999-09-11 Neil Darlow <neil@darlow.co.uk>
GnuPG fingerprint = 359D B8FF 6273 6C32 BEAA  43F9 E579 E24A 531F 9048

----- Forwarded message from NeTraverse LUG Program <lugs@netraverse.com> 
-----

Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:18:31 -0500
From: "NeTraverse LUG Program" <lugs@netraverse.com>

The contact information for our program is lugs@netraverse.com and the URL
is www.netraverse.com/LUG/ We will be working with other vendors to make
donations and discounts available to all LUG members over the course of the
year as well as creating additional software grants.  Here is the letter we
have been sending to group administrators it has the details of the program
spelled out. We will continue to try to add value to the progam so
suggestions are always welcome.

Dear Linux User Group Administrator,

You are receiving this email because you are listed as the contact of your
LUG at www.linux.org. We wanted to contact you about a special offer we are
making to all LUGs.

We have seen Linux grow, in large part, from the work and evangelism that
has occurred in computer user groups like yours. We would like to help
sponsor these efforts by donating software and support to your LUG, coupled
with a special member-only offer.

NeTraverse would like to offer you a free license for our Win4Lin
Workstation Edition 4.0 software (an $89.99 value) - the best way to bridge
Windows to Linux, especially for those hard to replace applications. In
addition, we would like to offer your membership a discount of $20 off the
retail price of Win4Lin Workstation Edition 4.0.

To take advantage of the member discount, we ask that you notify your
membership by email, or announce at your monthly meeting, that NeTraverse is
now sponsoring you and that members are entitled to the special benefits
described in the welcome letter.

We would like to list all sponsored LUGs on our LUG page
(http://www.netraverse.com/LUG/) and continue to make special offers to all
LUG members.  This would be done by sending you an email so you can decide
whether to include it in your normal user group communications (NeTraverse
does not want to, and will not, SPAM you with junk mail).

We are very excited about this chance to help the communities that have
helped us. If you would like to sign up for this offer please reply to this
email with the following information so we may update our records:

LUG Name
City
State(if applicable)
Country
Administrative Contact Name
Administrative Contact Email

We will reply with our welcome letter and an electronic certificate with a
Win4Lin license code. You will also be informed on how to help your members
take advantage of our LUG sponsorship discounts.


Regards,

Mark R. Hinkle
Vice President, NeTraverse
lugs@netraverse.com
http://www.netraverse.com/LUG/