[Scottish] Drupal and the society.......

[Dan Shearer]

On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 02:31:46PM +0000, Kevin McDermott wrote:

> I think it's helpful for people in the more remote areas of Scotland to
> be able to use the Scotlug list to contact one another...infinitely
> easier than setting up a "Auchenshuggle LUG" and hoping people find it.

I think it is helpful for more than just the remote areas. Of course
some huge one-size-fits-all LUG isn't going to work, but right now Linux
and OSS in Scotland are still seeking their community voices it seems to
me, in that lots of people want stuff to happen but not much stuff
actually does. So in the short term overlap is good... and an awful lot
of free software topics are not related to geography anyway.

One of the missing ingredients is consistent energy, or energy of lots
of inconsistent people thrown towards the same end. Arron has energy so
if he and others like him are willing to spread it around, well, it
might make the good things happen sooner. Money can help, but it isn't
likely to come without the energy.

By way of vague analogy, not prescription, Australia has a lot of very
active LUGs (really, really active in fact) but Linux Australia at a
national level makes a whole lot of other things practical such as:
linux.conf.au, coordinated education efforts in parliaments against
legislation that will hurt most people, and national prizes, a place
that large companies can be unconfused about enough to sponsor very
substantially, etc.  But the linux-aus list is really big and messy and
busy all the same...

D