[HLUG] Topics at Meetings

[Malcolm Herbert]

> Yes, I think Linux specialists are a bit thinner on the ground in the 
> county than in the cities and the home counties, but its a changing 
> picture.

true, but the latest hire to my team in Red Hat was interviewed
initially in the Barrels ....lots of skills in Herefordshire with no IT
career possibilities, let alone open source ones

> 
> We've spoke before about you giving us some kind of talk, and I hope we 
> can get it arranged sometime over the oncoming next few months

I am happy to do something for 17th March if you like (as I don't plan
to be travelling on that week); let me know if you'd like me to find a
suitable venue...

We could discuss things like
	- current market for Linux and other open source applications
	- key upstream technologies
	- some competitive analysis (I might be a bit biased)
	
If possible, I could also make contact with the Council to check out
their current OSS usage; they did use Spamassassin on all mail traffic a
couple of years back. I need to see if any of the guys are still there. 

Malc


> 
> Regards
> 
> Julian Robbins
> 
> > Malcolm
> >
> > On Fri, 2010-02-19 at 09:47 +0000, Matthew Macdonald-Wallace wrote:
> >   
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> Firstly, I apologies if anything in this email offends people here, I  
> >> don't intend to sound as if I'm belittling people or that I think I'm  
> >> some kind of Linux God (I'm not!), however I also have never really  
> >> trusted email as a communications medium to say things that might not  
> >> seem as good written down as they would sound if spoken!
> >>
> >> With all that said, one of the reasons that I've become less  
> >> interested in coming to the meetings is that the discussions tend to  
> >> revolve around how to migrate from Windows to Ubuntu or how to fix an  
> >> issue in Ubuntu.
> >>
> >> I often feel that far from being a "Linux User Group" community in  
> >> this country (and I do mean the whole of the UK here), we are rapidly  
> >> becoming a "Ubuntu User Group" and that is not what I'm looking for at  
> >> a meeting.
> >>
> >> I can already hear some of you murmuring along the lines of "so why  
> >> doesn't he step up and do something then?" and I'll get to that in a  
> >> minute.
> >>
> >> For those of you who don't know, I spend my working life with Linux.   
> >> We have recently implemented Automated Configuration Management using  
> >> Puppet and we're now looking to put together a build system around  
> >> cobbler so that it is easier to rebuild than repair any of our 100+  
> >> servers.
> >>
> >> All our servers run Centos or Debian and we tend to experience issues  
> >> with loosing disks from Hardware Arrays, recovering Software Raid,  
> >> analysing security incidents and similar.  I really don't spend much  
> >> time working with Linux on the desktop, I use it and it works for me  
> >> to do my job, but I don't have any issues after the install as a rule  
> >> and (as I run Ubuntu on my desktop - Stop smirking at the back! :oP )  
> >> if I do have any issues, I ask on the Ubuntu Community mailing lists.
> >>
> >> So, if any of you are still reading, here's what I'd like to propose:
> >>
> >> 1) If there is interest in how to run a Linux server for fun and  
> >> profit, or people would like to know more about securing and  
> >> monitoring servers I'm more than happy to do a talk/presenation.
> >>
> >> 2) If people aren't interested in this, I will continue to lurk on the  
> >> mailing list and help out where I can
> >>
> >> 3) If people are offended by the above, I'm happy to move on if asked.
> >>
> >> As I said at the beginning, I've probably offended someone by the  
> >> above and to put it bluntly the level of discussions generally at  
> >> meetings tend to be on getting the GUI working as opposed to the  
> >> technical in depth discussions that I crave, but that's probably just  
> >> me! :)
> >>
> >> Kind regards,
> >>
> >> Matt
> >>
> >> -- 
> >> Matthew Macdonald-Wallace
> >> matthew at truthisfreedom.org.uk
> >> http://www.truthisfreedom.org.uk/
> >>
> >>     
> >
> >
> >   
> 
> 


-- 
------------------------------------------
Dr Malcolm Herbert
Director, EMEA Strategy & Solutions Office
t: +44 7720 079845
------------------------------------------