Moving forward

During spring break, I had a chance to contemplate all that took place
while I was gone.

It was suprising and helpful to see the different viewpoints of folks
in the group. Obviously I hit a nerve so I will work to be careful how
I phrase things in the future so as not to offend.

Know this: my intentions have always been for the advancement of Linux
and AKLUG. Conversation about a particular distribution or package
most likely occurs because I am using them or am interested in how they
work. That said, it seems like we need to move along a track that
serves many needs. This creates a problem, because we are not a huge
organization (in number). Resources for this sort of thing takes
money, time and dedication of more than just a few.

It will be apparent by the participation in the IT Expo (and possibly
the Consumer Expo) if we have the wherewithall to accomplish these
tasks.

I'd like to suggest that we do two things:

First, despite the fact that stereotypes may cause headaches, we need
to have what seems to be three levels of "expertise".

  1. User Level - This would include folks just coming to Open Source
and Linux. Possibly folks interested in using OpenOffice, Gimp,
Evolution, etc on Windows (and maybe the PC User group already does
that?)

  2. Intermediate Level - This probably includes a majority of the
AKLUG force, sans some newer members. These folks may have in-depth
knowledge of a particular package (Apache, Webmin, etc). Additionally,
they would have specific knowledge of a particular distribution like
Fedora, Ubuntu, etc.

  3. Advanced Level - This would include those folks who know how to
compile programs from source. Can reconfigure and rebuild a kernel and
have coded some of their own software (not necessarily C code, could be
Perl, Ruby, etc.)

Second, it seems reasonable to chart a course for those that are new to
our group. Growth is a motivator for some, although I suspect we will
see folks who 'just want the answer'. We'll have to decide if AKLUG
wants to be the sort of organization that just gives fish to people,
instead of teaching them how to fish on their own. I lean towards the
latter.

Of course, all of this is up for discussion and I hope that anyone who
is not in agreement with my ideas can provide an alternative that could
be further discussed. Anything else is just noise.

Mike B.

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Received on Sun Mar 25 20:26:59 2007