[Novalug] Meetings and purpose

Richard Ertel richard.ertel@gmail.com
Fri May 29 14:37:41 EDT 2009


I rarely chime in around here, but let me just say that I hope the
meetings continue. I've only been to the 2 most recent meetings, but I
enjoyed them thoroughly.  I feel that the internet and social
networking etc has made communication so easy, that we are definitely
seeing face-to-face in-real-life human relationships suffer.  I'm
fighting back against that by attending novalug meetings among other
meetups. So count me in, for what it's worth. For outreach also. I'd
love to assist at an installfest or something someday, just don't ask
me to organize it :)

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 13:37, American Dave <novalug@soupy.org> wrote:
> On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 12:53:59AM -0400, Maxwell Spangler wrote:
>
>> Years ago when I was passionate about Linux I made it to as many novalug
>> and dclug meetings as I could.  Living in Greenbelt, MD, getting to
>> dclug meant fighting the beltway rush hour or back road stop and go
>> traffic for over an hour and getting to novalug on early Saturday
>> mornings meant getting out of bed for a long drive.  But I found both to
>> be worth it for the company I was able to meet and interact with at both
>> meetings.
>
> It's tough for me to get to DCLUG for that reason, but it's been worth
> getting to.  Also you were passionate years ago?  How do we get you
> passionate today?
>
>> The presentations were good but the reason I really attended was to put
>> aside the other things in my life and meet with people who were
>> interested in Linux enough to put their things aside and spend time with
>> me.  When that convergence happens, you have genuine opportunities to
>> contribute to other people's lives.  And a chance to talk to someone at
>> lunch/dinner after the meetings is a chance to learn about them --
>> knowing more than their name, email and signature information is
>> valuable if you want to put their online comments in perspective.
>
> Agree 100%.
>
>> I see LUG meetings as less useful these days because:
>>
>> * So much of Linux can easily be done "out of the box" with much less
>> effort than years ago and problems can fairly easily be resolved with
>> clever googling.  Is this just me or is my experience and skill level
>> with Linux giving me this perspective?
>
> I do agree here, but there are areas that are still a bear:
>
>  * centralized authentication/authorization
>  * programming securely and efficiently
>  * managing large numbers of hosts
>  * distributed filesystems
>
> Installation difficulty was solved years ago with Red Hat 5, way back in
> 1998 when I started.  Even X11 is easy with Xorg for 90% of use cases.
>
>> * If fewer people show up, you've got less reason to go to meet people,
>> which recursively causes less people to show up and.. so forth.
>
> Agreed, but that's why I show up.
>
>> * The mailing list has been pretty good at allowing remote people like
>> myself to feel part of a community without actually being physically
>> present there.
>
> I think you should show up.  As has been said, lunch with the group
> is fantastic.  I even had the pleasure of eating with Vint Cerf after
> a meeting.
> -A. Dave
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