[Glastonbury] Tonight's meeting

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Sun, Dec 18, 2005 at 11:15:12AM +0000, Ian Dickinson wrote:
> Martin <mwheeler at startext.co.uk> wrote:
> > Very constructive meeting tonight, despite the fact that there were only
> > four of us present (with apologies for absence from Sean, stuck in
> > Shepton; and Greg, doing his accounts).
> I gave apologies earlier in the discussion - I wasn't in the country
> on Weds. Glad you had a constructive meeting.
> 
> > Plus other named persons responsible for Meetings Organisation (we don't
> > have anyone doing this specifically, at the moment -- Cherry; Ian -- fancy
> > taking this on?);
> Thanks for asking, but, I'm afraid I'm not. To unpack the reason why,
> I think I have to ask (with some trepidation) what a Linux User Group
> is for? From Martin's posting, there are themes of: supporting other
> Linux users with tips and problem solving, promoting and advocating
> Linux to the general computer-using public and specific sectors such
> as education, developing Linux-centric teaching material and creating
> a social gathering for Linux-ites to hang out together. Those are all
> good and worthy things, but not high enough on my personal priorities
> that I can make the necessary commitment to helping run the group. As
> I think I've said before, I'm passionately interested in creating high
> productivity software development environments and pushing the
> boundaries of software architecture and design. I work in both Windows
> and Linux environments in pursuit of those goals. And with web
> services and web-based UI's, the underlying operating system
> increasingly is less relevant.
> 
There may be other developers lurking. Why not use the LUG as a forum
for software development and software productivity as well? A few people
around are at the level of unpacking a tar.gz and wondering where to go
next, some of us are experienced Linux users, still others Linux
sysadmins (which is where I'm most at home), and others again active 
software developers (which is where I'm getting to, but not yet 
comfortable). Web services and web based UI's are still, to some extent
not operating system agnostic - more off-list if you want to discuss
this :) - but could be better: can group members help you as guinea
pigs to make stuff better?

Become our development guru / software librarian who knows what we 
have available (and what's there in the 
wider sense?). Talk on software development trends one evening?
Compare/contrast source code management tools / integrated IDE's / 
debugging tools? All of this without formal commitment: given that
the group has survived thus far on goodwill, I can't see that
any of the suggested roles will be massively onerous in the short term.


> > Offers to fill any of the proposed posts ?  Further suggestions ?
> If your costs are fairly moderate, perhaps you could seek sponsorship
> from local IT based businesses to fund the meeting spaces, keeping the
> entry cost free?
> 
> Ian
> 
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