[Nottingham] [MEETING] Wed 15 June 2005 - The NLUG Constitution

[Duncan John Fyfe]

On Thu, 2005-06-02 at 18:57 +0100, Michael Quaintance wrote:
> > This is your group. Please read our proposed Constitution and make 
> > comment. We can then vote on the idea and 'move forwards'.
> > Comments, discussion, feedback *REQUIRED*
> 
> You asked for it...
> 
> I ask this only as a question, definitely NOT a request or even a 
> suggestion.
> 
> Is it required/useful to define the terms "Free" and "Open Source"?
> 

I think this should be left deliberately vague for exactly the reasons
you give. We have (occasionally) been known as the Not Linux Users Group
for more than just being Nottingham based.

This may be a LUG by name but pub meets have had 'fix it' flavours for
other OSs too.  
In fact most meetings to date have not been specifically Linux.  
Taking Linux to be strictly the kernel, only one evening (Dave Jones
talk two years ago) has been specifically linux.  A looser definition
leaves a few talks which were about specific distros (SuSE and Mandrake)
to be Linux only evenings.
BASH ,  PERL , disaster recovery are a few examples of the many non-OS
specific talks we have had.
	
Some of the things we do (the Awareness day) have a strong Linux bias.
A long time ago (well it seems that way now) someone suggested adding
examples of Free/Open source software (eg. theOpenCD) running on Windows
to our Awareness day.  I have to admit we drew the line there because we
(those of us running the day) are Free/Open source people and have
little interest in advocating Windows because you can run FOSS on it.

Don't get me wrong though, things like TOCD have their place in the
menagerie that is FOSS (I tend to pass copies round to friends and
passing aliens who are Windows bound) just not at a Linux awareness day.


> I only ask as I am a *BSD user by preference (although likely a linux 
> developer by occupation soon) and so my normal definition of "free" is 
> not quite what RMS would use to describe it. That said, this is a 
> 'Linux' group, it says so in the title and I am quite happy with the 

but not a GNU/Linux Group  :)

>  
> Microsoft Windows is the most likely but the line gets even more 
> blurred with Mac OS X 

surely that is just anti-aliasing of fonts ?

> and Solaris, 

well there is no helping some people.

Have fun,
Duncan