[SGVLUG] OT: reminder for those who went to MS Heroes event togetSQL NOW

[Dustin Laurence]

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EnigmailChris Louden wrote:

| On Wed, Jun 4, 2008 at 12:00 PM, Charles N Wyble
<charles at thewybles.com> wrote:

|> One of the problems that I have with the Linux community in Southern
|> California, is that many of them who participate on the mailing lists
|> aren't large scale enterprise users, or even supporting a small to
|> medium sized growth company. The people who are qualified to make a lot
|> of these software decisions aren't discussing them.
|
| The problem is that your looking in the wrong place. Or that you are
| expecting something to be somewhere because its logical to you that it
| should be there.

I would second that.  LUGs serve a different purpose for a different
audience.  It isn't that there aren't people doing enterprise work in
LUGs, but they are inevitably the minority.  That's not bad, because
there are other places focused on what they do.

The UUASC list is possibly a bit closer to what OP wants, though perhaps
not exactly; it's heavily weighted towards unix greybeards.  They also
tolerate LUG type folk just fine, but they don't dominate as they do here.

I find both very useful, for entirely different reasons.  Some questions
just receive better answers one place and some the other.

|> So you have a whole lot of home/hobbyist users saying "use open source
|> software"

Is that surprising?  LUGs are started by and for exactly those people.
If it were up to the enterprise people, LUGs wouldn't exist.  They're
too busy with the same stuff all day, and club stuff probably feels like
a busman's holiday.  So it's precisely the hobbyists who believe in Free
or Open software for their own reasons that volunteer the thankless time
it takes.

It's good to have both sorts in the same place, but both have to
understand that they aren't the same people with the same goals, skills,
or interests.

| The Enterprise is concerned with one thing. Generating revenue.

The name should be the tip-off: _Linux_ User's Group.  It is a club for
people who say "Use Linux," and so it's expected that they post messages
that say "Use Linux."  The Enterprise consultant or admin should regard
reading LUG posts in that light as one of his professional skills.  He
probably doesn't believe everything that Microsoft's salesmen say,
either. :-)

Dustin
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