[Linux-aus] Re: LUG/SIG contacts (was: "SCO case: Australian LUGs")

[Leon Brooks]

On Tue, 24 Jun 2003 10:43, Michael Still wrote:
> At the end of the article, Sam comments that the Canberra, Sydney,
> and Adelaide LUGs "did not bother to respond".

Sam also omitted even mentioning PLUG or SLPWA, but did apologise when 
asked about this and offered to prominently publish my email as a 
letter, along with his apology.

> It should also be noted that Dr Tridgell gets 1,000's of emails a
> day, speaks at many conferences, and has previously been the subject
> of a full page article in the AFR. He is also a full time researcher
> at IBM, as well as working on one of the most popular open source
> packages available. Clearly, as stated on his website, he might not
> notice every email message he receives.

It's also worth noting that Andrew's "full time researcher" includes 
more frequent flyer miles than you ever want to know about, all over 
the world, and that he has always taken care to respond thoughtfully to 
anything important despite all of the above.

This leads me to wonder what time frame "did not bother to respond" 
encompasses?

> Obviously it is not the policy of Fairfax to attempt to misrepresent
> the LUG community in this way, and is not up to the normal standard
> of journalism from Fairfax. I also assume that Fairfax did not seek
> to make it harder to get responses from LUGs in the future by
> alienating them now.

Perhaps now would be a good time to make sure that the contact details 
F2 and its descendents have are correct and that the nature of those 
contacts are well understood.

All of the organisations which I am on the committees of have a single 
address, committee@[domain-of-group], which lands in the inboxes of at 
least four (more usually eight) people.

CLUG is fairly singular. Does CLUG have an equivalent to a committee? 
Principal organisers? Venue contacts? Would something like a 
press@[domain] email be useful in CLUG's case, absent a committee? How 
binding and/or valuable is a statement by a random CLUG member?

Would it be more appropriate to treat LA (Linux Australia) as the 
rendezvous point, the single contact, and rely on them to gather 
opinion from the LUGs when asked? For example, LA's current treasurer 
is on countless LUG lists, and would probably know who to ask what and 
how.

> What possible action can be taken to minimise the impact this
> statement might have between the Fairfax and the LUG community.

Deeming questionmark implied, perhaps it is appropriate for the various 
LUGs and SIGs to discuss it amongst themselves for a week or so, and 
see if we can reason our way to something conclusive that Fairfax will 
be happy with, if not routing general press traffic through LA.

In the immediate term, making sure that Sam's apology is prominent and 
inclusive would be a good start (if he missed all of WA, undoubtedly he 
missed significant groups elsewhere), and also making sure that he 
clearly publishes my email as being from Leon only (rather than an 
officer of any of the orgs I refer to in it) would be helpful.

After that, write the incident off as a learning experience for all.

Mike and Michael, I note that Sam has not yet been CC'ed into this 
thread. Should he be?

Cheers; Leon

-- 
http://cyberknights.com.au/     Modern tools; traditional dedication
http://plug.linux.org.au/       Committee Member, Perth Linux User Group
http://slpwa.asn.au/            Committee Member, Linux Professionals WA
http://linux.org.au/            Committee Member, Linux Australia