[Lugcomms] Council of Australian Linux User Groups

[Donna Benjamin]

On Friday I had a chat with Ben Powell of Taslug who has embarked on
organising next year's linux.conf.au. He reminded me of a post he made
back in October 2006. As he's gunna be a bit busy over the next 10
months I agreed to pick up his suggestion and wave it around again.

http://lists.linux.org.au/archives/linux-aus/2006-October/014417.html

Forming a council of oz-lugs was roundly applauded as A Good Idea.

The ensuing thread raised questions regarding how much it might cost,
whether or not it should or could be run in conjunction with
linux.conf.au, whether or not it needed to be F2F or would an online
meeting do.

Whatever ends up making sense I reckon we should do it. 

There's 3 steps.

1. Convene an IRC / teleconf meeting with a rep from as many
   LUGs as we can manage to get together at the same time.
2. Keep discussion going on the lugcomms mailing list 
   (possibly seeded with meeting reports / talk announcements?)
3. Build toward an F2F meeting / workshop to take place mid year.
   Agenda could include things like: 
   a] software freedom day ideas sharing and joint promotion strategies 
   b] reviving Regional Delegates Program
   c] lug best practice - models of association (none to inc.)
   d] Cross-lug building ideas and strategies.
   e] Wish list of speakers to get LA to invite to do a tour of oz-lugs.
   f] LUG infrastructure: lug-in-a-box, websites, planets & mail lists.
   g] How to bid to host LCA.
   h] Insert other random idea here.

The trick here is that 1 and 2 have to happen before we even contemplate
asking Linux Australia to think about spending money on 3. 

That said - Spending money on 3 _is_ a good idea. There is value in
getting everyone together Face-to-face. I'm willing to put together a
cost-estimate for LA council so they can evaluate whether or not it
would be worth the required level of investment. 

First Task is to convene the COALUG IRC meeting, and invite relevant
people to subscribe to lugcomms at lists.linux.org.au

How does a Wednesday in a month or 2 sound? 
8pm-9pm Eastern Time and not a minute longer.

Who else would like to help make this happen?

- Donna

[note: I've tried to send this to contact emails of a bunch LUGs - I
couldn't find some addresses - so please feel free to forward on you
want to.]

-- 
Donna Benjamin
Conference Director linux.conf.au 2008 http://www.mel8ourne.org
Board Member Open Source Industry Australia http://www.osia.net.au
Executive Director Creative Contingencies http://www.cc.com.au