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Do LUGs Still Matter?
Joe Barr, writing for NewsForge asks, "Do LUGs still matter? Back in the day, LUGs were rowdy, popular, and highly contagious centers for aficionados of Linux. Install fests were a big deal. Members came from all walks of life, united only by a penchant for something new and cool, and a chance to place a bet on the impossible notion of world domination by an operating system hacked together by a ragtag bunch of students on the Internet. It's different today. Linux is now mainstream, it's being spread by slick corporate marketing, and with most distros, installation is a snap. So the question arises, do LUGs still matter?"
I mostly see groups like these still holding together for community ties. If they mattered before they matter now. Corporate backing is no reason for people to still not gather together for what they believe in and what interests them.
Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.
I heard that Linux User Groups were a good place to meet chicks? Is this true?
LUGs are a holdover from the days of the BBS, when communication was slow and information was hard to find. There was a LUG in my town. I think it got taken over by a needy charitable organization and is hosted in a drafty and somewhat smelly clothing drop-off center. I've never been to it. I just downloaded and installed Fedora Core last year and I've been hooked ever since. The internet is the only user's group I'll ever need. So the real question becomes "What's next now that user's groups are dead?" Ans: Slashdot!
I remember my days in a user group. It attracted lots of people because there were always things to learn. Even experts could pick up tidbits of valuable information, and more often than not the novices picked up help from the experts. In that way, everyone became a little more expert. And lemme tell you, there are few things more satisfying than telling people something they don't know, and watching their jaws literally drop.
That "slick corporate marketing" will convince you to buy into a particular software and hardware solution, but buy-in and installation are only the beginning. There's later configuration, installations on top of your existing system, new peripherals, and plus you may just want to do new things with it. The original seller can't afford to hold the hand of every novice that comes along and gets their system. Trust me on this, in that case the user group is a godsend.
And now for the twist: note that at no time did I actually mention Linux. That's because the user group I was talking about dealt with a different platform, one that still values its user group network.
Take the hint: easy to set up and easy to install, and it still supports its user groups. There is power in community.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
People with a common interest will get together. We're doing it right now aren't we. That part of human nature will never change.
Having said the above, the nature of LUGs will change as the technology matures. A successful group will probably have one or two core members who keep it going. Otherwise, the group will die out.
Hot rodders are similar to Linux users in many respects. In the early days, everyone had to be a bit of a mechanic because cars were primitive. It was easy to make improvements on your car for the same reason. As cars became more sophisticated and laws became stricter, most people quit working on their cars and left that to the professionals. You still have hot rodders though. They still get together at the burger joint. There are still hot rod clubs. I think it will be the same with LUGs. Certainly as a proportion of the population of Linux users, the number of Linux geeks will decrease. However, in absolute numbers, there will probably be just as many of us or more.
Maybe something like 6 years ago, I co-founded the Egyptian Linux Users' Group. Me and my 3 co-conspirators had a vision of free software as a social movement, not just as a different kind of software development approach.
6 years on, we have what has got to be one of the most vibrant communities in a LUG anywhere. We teach one another, we help with downloading distros, we do activism, we hold installfests, we go out for coffee, dinner, hold LAN parties where one unnamed individual always beats us into submission at bzflag, and we work to bolster the bottom line of Egyptian beer manufacturers.
Since when was a LUG about helping people install Linux? It's a community Goddamn you. Communities will always be relevant. If there was no community there would be no free software: a LUG is simply the most evident face of this community.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Here is why:
Networking. And I'm not talking about the TCP/IP kind. I'm talking about meeting each other, getting to know other linux professionals and people of the tech community. Instead of overly peppered resumes with mindless certifications, you get to meet people who actually can talk about the technologies, the issues, etc. You should see the number of head-hunters, hiring agencies and etc that come to a LUG meeting with the hopes of meeting real intelligence. (Recently my LUG (NYLUG) and Google threw a big party at a fancy restaurant in Manhattan in an attempt to attract the tech community, but python developers in particular. Google's Alex Martelli was the speaker (you python guys should know him)).
Additionally, networking doesn't just mean the kind that gets consultants hired and what not. I'm talking about building a community. Letting people meet new people and become friends. Every time our LUG has a meeting, you can always see various circle of "LUG-friends" get together and talk amongst themselves. Its brilliant. At a LUG meeting you aren't talking to someone overly concerned about mindless shit like the latest Pop music star, but people who take to the same issues that matter greatly to yourself (DRM, DMCA, kernel stability, PHP security, source compilations, etc). Its quite a treat to be able to sit down and have a beer with someone else who actually knows what a buffer-overflow is.
LUG's are also are great because they can tap in from a pool of talent to get a single effort going. The president of my LUG is also one hell of a salesman. His ability to be a people person is like no other, and so we get great speakers all the time (Ie: Google, XenSource, Novell, Chris DiBona, etc). But our president isn't a super technical guy, so we leave server management to someone else. We also leave mailing list management to another guy, who is incredibly level-headed and thus handles flame-fest situations very well. For an individual to do all of the above would be nearly impossible. A group of people OTOH, can do this very well without sucking up a too much of a single person.
While Linux isn't brand spanking new, it does not mean LUGs are not useful anymore. It means they've adapted, re-focused their energies, and aim for a new direction. Gone are the days where many LUG presentations were introductions about the technology. Today we talk about new technology, but more important what you can do with this technology. (IE: Xen virtualization.)
This January is our LUG's 7th year birthday. And we are strong as we have ever been.
Sunny Dubey
Officer
New York Linux User's Group
While I have never been a part of any LUG, I feel compelled to share my opinion.
User groups, regardless of what the primary focus is, are an integral part of our world. Look at popular sports, for example. The social companionship is enhanced exponentially when there's a common primary subject of focus, whether it is an operating system, a particular footbal team (American, British, Martian, etc.), or a certain league of motorsports. The amount of social bonding that takes place when fans of any topic come together is simply amazing, and is beneficial to our species. Additionally, when groups of like-minded individuals come together on a certain topic, the collective knowledge exceeds that of what could be learned in any individual instance.
Now consider for a moment the explosion of the use of Linux. It is becoming the sole server OS on the internet, intranets, and that small 4-node LAN you have running in your house. Linux is free, stable (for the most part - this is not going to be an OS war), highly configurable, and easily administrated from a remote location. Being that it has so much that it can do, there is so much knowledge to be had about it -- more than what a single human can and should know.
By gathering some of your closest affectionados to set up a load-balancing, caching, super-cool-illegal-ninja-moves DNS server, several things happen. Firstly, the social bonding takes place. Secondly, the knowledge of the group as a whole allows for the task to be completed quickly and properly. Thirdly, everyone knows something that you don't: Everyone learns something new from the time spent.
Now, you're probably thinking, "What good is that if you're not doing it for hire?" The answer is simple. By simply living, you need to be ready to take on a new walk of life at a moment's notice, just for your own survival. Certain walks of life have certain benefits. This walk of life that we have all considered taking (if you're reading this, you're in the IT field, considering it, or retired from it) is needed for other walks of life to function. Since it is a rather large dependancy in itself, success and knowledge are rewarded by fairly decent financial reimbursement -- your salary. To be successful and knowledgable, you need hands-on learning, discussion with other knowledgable individuals, and the above mentioned social bonding. In addition to the primary skills you gain from such events, the secondary skills are equally as useful.
Now that I realise I have been babbling for the last 20 minutes (It's early on Christmas. Give me a break.), I'm going to stop there.
In short: Yes, LUG's still matter.
LUGs may not matter, but, I see most of LUGs turning into something that matters much more:
Free Software User Groups
or FSUGs.
Those groups can promote free software on proprietary platforms (such as firefox and open office on windows), generally as a transitory stage to reach a free platform. Various free platforms are embraced: GNU/Linux, *BSD and why not GNU (that is, with HURD).
Here, the local LUG is very important and they make huge events each year bringing thousands of people to learn about free software, there's no marketing of any company that can replace that.
Pupeno
I've been an active and sideline member of the Austin Linux community and the ALG group Joe Barr is primarily referring to for many years. I think Austin is somewhat unique, and the slow death of its user group can be attributed to people as much as anything.
;-) Over time the leadership of the group, and its direction became set by the younger, more frequently attending members. The mailing list became a venue for a battle between the young vs the old, the new members vs the founders. Some members split off to form splinter groups, some people got tired of the fighting, and the group dwindled further.
Some issues:
During the early years of the group is was usually hosted at sites that had two rooms. One for organized presentations, and the other for freewheeling conversations and people were able to wander between the two. The site had some form of open net access. The moderator (Stu Green, or others) usually started the conversation going with a 15 minute rant on current events, and elicited questions, inform the group on what people were working on and what they needed to find out. This helped match people together by interested and really jump started the socialization.
Later the group moved to venues that had one room, and on days where a presentation was less than interesting there could be no social aspect until dinner after the meeting (Katz's, Starseeds or some other late night venue.) Also, the new venue's were at City and State owned buildings, and some core members had such strong political views that they refused to attend meetings in those buildings. The meetings also for a time alternated between a North Austin and South Austin location instead of a central one, meaning most people only attended whichever meeting was closest.
The Internet Bubble hit Austin hard in 2001-2002, and many core members were jobless, and could no longer afford to eat out. The dinner group dwindled to just a few, and we found many people were attending meetings just for the dinner socialization.
There were a lot of ongoing ego battles... many of the original founders of the group held strong political opinions but did not frequently attend meetings. They were also typically older, and had some of the grumpiness generally expected of people in their age bracket.
In both computer and social networks there are true benefits in the number of nodes/people. The more people, the more interactions, and the more useful and interesting the group becomes. The Austin Linux group died the death of a thousand small cuts.. the increasingly mainstream use of Linux is only one of those.
What a ridiculous question. Maybe those who need to believe themselves super geeks may leave but they'll be easily replaced by new users who take joy in learing more about their chosen OS. As president of a MUG, I can say that a good OS attracts passionate users who like to share and learn. Does constant Mac mainstream press kill Mac User Groups? Not hardly. Does ease of use kill Mac user groups? Ain't no easier computer - still got the groups. All computers are complicated to use and user groups are a great resource and a great social opportunity for people to share their passion.
And the idea of Linux being mainstream is just a mite hopeful. It may be mainstream among network administrators and computer science grads reading Slashdot, but I can guarantee you that the general public wouldn't know a Linux box from a linotype machine. And what they do know is probably wrong anyway. Macs get lots of press and misinformation about them is the norm.
I've attended a couple of local LUGs and can testify that their members are just as avid and cultish as Mac users, and just as welcoming and eager to share. As long as Linux remains an underdog users will band together against the Windows world. You may loose a few members who only were proud of Linux because it was so difficult to make work but they are leaving because of some other need than the one to share and learn from each other.