[Liverpool] Departure

[Neil Bothwick]

On Wed, 22 Aug 2012 22:07:06 +0100, Bob Ham wrote:

> For those who were not at OggCamp, I have to announce that I am stepping
> down as a volunteer for LivLUG and I will no longer be attending
> meetings.

I'll be sorry to see you go and thank you for all your efforts in
keeping the group organised and finding speakers.
 
> For some time now I've felt a disquiet about the character of the LUG,
> in general but also specifically in relation to free software.  The LUGs
> that I have been involved with in the past have always supported free
> software.  I had been labouring under the assumption that LivLUG was no
> different.  The original LivLUG website of 2005 stated that:
> 
>   “The purpose of the group is to promote the use of GNU/Linux and Free
>   Software, and to bring the users of Liverpool together.”
> 
> However, it has become increasingly clear that this description is not
> accurate.  The issue came to a head at the Wednesday meeting this month
> when I asked whether people would be happy to have a talk about
> proprietary software, if it ran on Linux.  To my dismay but sadly not to
> my surprise, the answer was yes, people would be happy.

I'm not sure "happy" is the right term, more an acceptance that
proprietary software running on Linux is relevant to Linux users, whether
in a positive or negative way.

The problem arises with the original description - Linux AND Free
Software. Since Linux includes proprietary software, whether it be binary
firmware blobs or big programs like VMware, any all-encompassing
discussion of all things Linux will fail on the free software part of the
description. Adding Android complicates things even further.

We need to decide if we are a Linux group first or a Free Software group,
and the name is a good indicator of where our priorities lie. Of course
Free Software is important to Linux, and the majority of it is free, but
demanding 100% free means we can't cover 100% Linux. It's a matter of
priorities.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

And if you say "No", I shall be forced to shoot you.
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