Tina Gasperson wrote:
>
> What do the smart people think? Please remember that I am soliciting
> your comments as part of my research for the story, so if you want to
> possibly be part of the story, please respond either to the list or to
> me personally.
>
Well, for objective evidence, the SLUG Announce list used to have up to
425 or so members, and now has 365. Oddly, though, the main SLUG list
has remained fairly constant over the years at a little over 200. Of
course, if you've been on the list for any time at all, you know only a
small fraction of those on the list actually post.
More semi-objective evidence: At the Dunedin meetings, for some years,
the attendance has been on the order of 2 - 6. The people who show up
are usually the same ones, and I rarely see newbies. The last new person
I saw wasn't really what you'd call a "newbie". He wasn't that familiar
with Linux, but he was a total computer geek, and so caught on very
quickly. He'd had trouble installing Linux on a box he had, and we gave
him some pointers and such. Before him, the last newbie was a lady who
worked with computers for a living, but with Unix. She was interested in
helping her company switch to the less expensive and easier to maintain
Linux. Again, not a true newbie.
In general (unless we have a new person), the discussion ranges from
home remodeling to wives, to Verizon and other evil corporations ;-},
etc. I make sure we touch on Linux at least once a meeting, but that
discussion usually lasts for about ten minutes.
The people I see there are usually the same ones I see every meeting.
Some guys come to every other meeting, some to every one. The guys who
do come are *not* newbies. They generally are engineering types or
networking types who work with computers daily. They're not necessarily
Linux gurus. We don't do presentations, but welcome anyone who wants to
bring a box and have us hack away at it.
I think the conclusion to be drawn from this is that, in Dunedin's case,
the meeting is primarily social, and generally populated by geeks (this
is not meant as an insult; I count myself among them). And by the way,
all the guys who come are married and some have kids. So it's not like
they don't have social lives.
I'm not trying to make the case against LUGs. I'm just trying to give
you as much objective data as I can.
Attendance is *down*. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't know
that you have to repair LUGs because their attendance is down. Times
change, the market changes, conditions change. It's not the expense of
getting to a meeting; gas isn't that expensive yet. If people don't
come, then there's obviously nothing compelling enough to get them there.
I've been doing this for ten years now; I was here at the beginning of
this group. Even at the beginning, there was still a large social
component to meetings. It was mostly geeks, and geeks who were
interested in something which was unique, and who were a definite
minority in the computer landscape. There *was* more tech talk back
then. Now there are many many more people using Linux, and many many
more sites available for research. When I get an obscure error message,
what do I do? I google it. Almost always find some insight. If
something's "killing" LUGs, it's definitely the internet.
The height of SLUG was Tampa meetings at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. We had
a large room, *fast* internet access and power at each table, etc. Lots
of tech talk, lots of questions answered. Lots of people just sat there
and tinkered on their laptops while they listened to the meeting banter.
Attendance dropped off when we moved Tampa meetings to HCC. There we
didn't have power and internet at each table. At PWC, we had 35-40 per
meeting. At HCC, we dropped down to maybe 20, and I don't know what it
is now. Now Brandon's gone, Sarasota's gone, and Dunedin will fold at
the end of this year. My understanding is that New Port Richey has maybe
five people per meeting, though Rob would know better than I. St Pete,
as I recall is averaging 10 - 15 per meeting. Tampa is mostly young
professionals. Dunedin is usually older folks.
I've lost a lot of my enthusiasm for Linux. Here's what I mean by that:
When I first got involved, I was *stoked*. Windows sucked, and here was
something I could tinker with. I could write programs with the free (and
decent) compiler, and everything was fairly transparent, unlike Windows.
All you had to do was figure things out. You could hack your system to
your heart's content. I used to be in construction, and this was like
that, only with computers. At that time, Linux was not exactly the
easiest thing to figure out though. Installs required a lot of
information I didn't know and didn't have to supply to Windows. There
were thousands of applications, and I knew what maybe 10% of them did.
There really weren't great office applications.
Flash forward ten years. I still use Linux almost exclusively and with
no regrets. But now I know most of what I need to know to do anything I
need to do. There are great office applications. Installs don't require
me to know much; the software mostly figures out my hardware. I write
applications all the time for Linux. I love Linux. I'm just not
*excited* about it. It's like buying a new car. It's cool looking. It
smells like a new car. The transmission smoothly shifts for you. It's
all good. A few months go by. You still like your car. But it's now just
"your car". It's what gets you from point A to point B. You don't think
much about it. Same with Linux. At first, there were lots of mysteries.
Now not so much.
Now, if you look at LUGs as more than just meetings, it's a different
story. The lists are invaluable. Any time I have a tough question, I've
got folks here more than willing (and with adequate expertise) to help.
LUGs generally have websites, which can be tremendous resources for
research.
Aside from that, and aside from the occasional bad apple, you've got a
group of people here who are generally extraordinary. They're fairly
knowledgeable about a pretty technical field. They're generally
courteous and good-humored, and willing to help. For free. While we
don't all attend barbeques at each other's houses, and we may not agree
on politics or religion, we still can count each other more or less as
friends. That's not a bad reason to have a group together.
Paul
-- Paul M. Foster ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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