At the Linux Foundation, I recently had been brainstorming with some my colleagues about ways in which we might be able to reach out to the various local Linux User’s Group (LUGS). So I was quite surprised when I saw a blog posting from Lenovo’s Connections blog asking the question: “Local User Groups – gone the way of the dinosaur?” and even more provocatively, “Has the web now relegated the user group to history, along with dot matrix printers, cassette tapes for mass storage, and dial up modems with acoustic couplers?”
I checked on the web for a number of LUG’s, such as the Boston Linux and Unix User Group (BLU) and the Silicon Valley LUG (SVLUG), and they appeared to be active, at least in terms of mailing list activity and event calanedars. But of course that doesn’t indicate how many people are actually attending the face-to-face meetings, and how strong the LUG’s are in general.
So let me ask here — do you attend or participate in a LUG? How active is it? What do you get out of participating in a LUG?
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1 2 3 … 5 Next »@Jefro - You can find all the information you need here:
http://www.linux.org/groups/
http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/User-Group-HOWTO.html
My thoughts on the matter are that you can run a new LUG easily. Discuss Linux over coffee every month with someone else, and you have yourself a LUG! The above links have many recommendations, but don't assume they are restrictions stopping you from getting started.
My experience has been that user groups (not just Linux User Groups) are exploding in number, but that the total number of people in each group is relatively small - like somewhere between 15-30 people (or less).
It's so easy to throw up a wiki page, or create a mailing list, and start meeting to talk about things weekly or monthly. Portland, OR has a unique culture developing around this, and the manic activity around it is somewhat documented in our community's custom-developed calendaring system -- http://www.calagator.org.
I gave a user groups talk at FOSDEM over the weekend -- http://tr.im/fjbl and Gabrielle Roth and I produced a printable pamphlet for OSCON last year that details how you can run your own user group: http://tr.im/fn81
We need to convert that printable thing into a wiki page, but you know, there's never enough time in the day :)
One interesting thing I noticed about the FOSDEM crowd was that the audience was intrigued by the idea of creating an ad hoc group, without a formal leadership structure or a non-profit/legal status established. Several people commented to me after the talk that this seemed like a great way to get people interacting with one another without all of the pain of establishing a non-profit. Not sure if other countries/cultures have the same issues (favoring formal organization, over the informal, sometimes chaotic groups I tend to be interested in and work with).
Oh, and someone in the audience asked specifically about non-hierarchical organizations, and groups that truly have no leader. That was some food for thought -- I've seen a couple groups operate that way, but there tended to be forks in the community after a couple years. Not sure that's really a bad thing, but certainly an interesting part of user group culture and something I would like to blog/speak about more in the future.
The Beijing Linux Users Group (BLUG) is very active, and we have helped to get some of the other LUGs around China off the ground.
NaLug - Napoli Linux Users Group is active!
http://www.nalug.net
Hyderabad Also known as twin cities in India had two LUG's ILUGHYD and TWINCLING(Twin cities linux user group ) .
I and a group of volunteers tried organising a event http://www.mukt.in at Hyderabad for which we had to approach both LUG's of which we were members and inclined to one group .
There was also a FSF group for that state.
Strangely the main LUG ILUGHYD died and our event mailing list is now more active than the ILUGHYD mailing list thopugh we kind of post to both lists .
Hello Ted,
Here Shenzhen Linux Unix User Group is also very active, we have well organized rules and a board to keep regular meetings, and propose good topics, invite people to give presentations for each month, actually we meet more often than monthly;
http://www.szlug.org/ (Most pages Chinese currently)
http://groups.google.com/group/szlug (mailling list)
While most meetings are Linux technics centric, sometimes we also hold out-door activities such as climbing mountains, and some other styles of entertainment events;
In China, there are also LUGs in many others cities, we have kept a page to track most active LUGs in other cities of China and out of China,
http://wiki.szlug.org/w/Category:LUG
Hi Ted,
The Linux Users of Victoria (http://www.luv.asn.au/) has active meetings and is just about to start running beginners workshops for new members who aren't as familiar with Linux as the old timers. As a former committee member I know how hard it can be to keep these going as even with 20-50 people turning up for meetings and many more on the mailing lists it can be hard to find new and exciting talks for people! The group also runs an annual BBQ.
cheers,
Chris
In Houston we have an active group (HLUG) that has a regular weekly event as well as two monthly events - a general HLUG meeting and a meeting specifically dedicated to Samba. Meanwhile at least one University group, RLUG at Rice University seems to have completely vanished some time in the past few years.
The Beijing LUG(http://www.beijinglug.org) is also quite active. we hold monthly meeting talking about all kinds of open source projects, plus some other activities such as Gnome Asia Summit and Free Software Day. besides that, we help build communities in many universities and promote Linux installation and daily usage there.
We are really enjoying ourselves being involved in open source and Linux.
happy hacking!
Bergwolf
SSLUG (A danish + swedish linux user group covering the Skåne/Sjælland area) is quite active. We have lots of mailing list activity and a *huge* amount of face-to-face meetings.
We have weekly meetings in three different locations (practical because of the big geographical area we cover) as well as quite a few meetings every year like Software Freedom day, participating in Ubuntu release parties and so on.
All in all we're probably at 150+ meetings every year and have been for the last few years. And we probably average 20 talks (usually 1 hour talks) per year when not counting larger happenings like release parties etc.