[Wylug-discuss] November Meeting and Future Talks

[Mischa Oliver Altmann]

Good Morning,

>From the perspective of a Linux user who's played around quite a bit but
hasn't done anything truly serious and is a student:

Anne wrote:
> On Monday 24 Oct 2005 15:58, Dave Fisher wrote:
> >   2. This is a Linux _users_ group not a small business network.
> > While many activists (including myself) are self-employed, my guess
> > would be that most members are not and would be more interested in
> > technical matters than business matters.
> >
> In view of 2., I think a whole evening on business topics would probably
> be unwise, but a series of topics spread over sessions is perfectly
> reasonable, IMO.

I agree with Anne here, many might have an interest in such topics and i am
happy to listen. However, the one thing I haven't come across during any
WYLUG session I've been to (not that many) is the "down to basics" theme:
Topics which are relevant to everyone whether newbie (to learn) or guru
(to discuss) such as (basic) security, scripts, printing, file system --
as suggestions they have come up already but nobody seems to want to take
them on.

For newbies it might even be useful to have mini-talk on "how to get help",
e.g. check info, man, apropos, then google (mind you, most people dont
know how powerful google is!), mailing lists, howto,...

if we could start each wylug session with a mini-low-tech talk that would
be a very welcoming sign to people who are new to the OS world. Which
brings me to another point: while this is a LINUX user group many of the
programs we use daily are cross platform. we could try to give an overview
of OpenSource replacements for established (commercial) programs. In
subsequent sessions each of these get another mini-slot to give a more
detailed overview.

Finally, anyone out there confident enough to guide us throught the
lincense jungle? GPL, LGPL, Apache style, BSD, etc. This could cater for a
lively discussion.

my 2 studenty cents trying to appeal to a wider audience.

Mischa

--
Mischa Oliver Altmann
Student Representative of Level 3, Elec.Engineering
Union Council Representative for Ethical & Environmental Issues
The University of Leeds (United Kingdom)

personal website: http://www.altmann.at/~mischa (in terrible state)

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