[Nottingham] Linux Tuition

[Duncan John Fyfe]

On Thu, 10 Jul 2003, Chris Barry wrote:

> I like the idea of doing it for free for lug members, keep the opensource=
 spirit going :D
>

You top poster you...

Since when did "opensource" have anything to with at no financial cost ?
The whole point of "free" as in "free software" is about freedom to use and=
 develop
the software without being tied bt Licence agreements etc beyond the GPL|LG=
PL or equivalent.

Many companies from Linux Emporium to ISP's use "free software" to run prof=
itable businesses
which are anything but financially free.  And good luck to them I say, espe=
cially
those like RedHat who put money back into improving that software.

If you have ever been on corporate training courses there is a significant =
amount of money
charged for some of them.  As was discussed by some of us at the last meeti=
ng there are a lot
of services you can provide which people will ignore unless you charge what=
 they feel is reasonable
for the service  (for example, I've been a driver awareness course run by t=
he council road saftey
officer and driving instructors.  The first time they tried to run the cour=
se for free they got
no response.  Charge =A315 and and people felt 'it must be worthwhile' and =
applied).

On a smaller scale, if people (LUG or not ) would also like hands on Linux =
evening classes we are
going to need access to rooms/equipment which you'll be lucky to get for no=
wt.  So why not try to
run it as a (semi) professional business even if LUG members get a discount=
=2E

I'm sure there are plenty of people on the list who would love a GNU/Linux =
job rather than the
one they have now.  With the expressions of interest shown on the list so f=
ar, payed for tutorials
seems like an opportunity worth exploring further.

As for the LUG,  I (and I presume others) am happy for tutorial sessions to=
 be run.  Until it was
filled by the 'decissions about install fest' meeting I had pencilled 'Your=
 friend, the command
line' as just such a session into the September slot.

I think part of the impetus for the original post in this thread (I'm sure =
Marcel will
correct me if I'm wrong) is that with only ~6 presentation meetings a year =
there isn't much
room for tutorials.

hmmm... idea, remote access tutorials ...


Have fun,
Duncan

--=20
Duncan John Fyfe          X-ray Astronomy Group,
                          Dept. of Physics & Astronomy,
Phone +44 116 252 3635    University of Leicester,
E-mail djf@star.le.ac.uk  University Road,
                          Leicester, LE1 7RH, U.K.