Re: ComputerChips magazine

Russell Senior wrote:
> This has been debunked several times.  PLUG never stopped using
> "Portland Linux User Group".  It just started using another name
> _too_.  I have pointed people at the wayback machine's history of the
> PLUG Clinic website that demonstrates as much.  I have described the
> meeting at which the new name appeared.  The timing of the July 2003
> registration is not relevant, it just codified previous practice.

The only reason I think a name change would be good is not to relieve 
this perceived "confusion" about Portland LUGs. It's to make Russell 
Senior stop whining and complaining and polluting the list with his 
argumentative, repetative, unrelenting rhetoric. Russell is lucky he 
hasn't gotten banned from the list, if I had control over it I would 
have by now.

PLUG offers a "public service" and has put on the face of being such a 
group, but PDXLUG's "mission" (if you can call it that) was not to be a 
public service, but just a group of people who were into Linux and Open 
Source, getting together to talk about it and geek out. No clinics, no 
projects, not even stuff like an OSCON booth. That's it. Don't think of 
it any other way.

PDXLUG is not here to teach newbies how to use Linux, although if 
someone came in to a meeting and had questions, we would answer them, 
but that is not really the focal point of the group. The distinction 
made in PLUGs monthly meeting announcements that PDXLUG is a "less 
formal alternative to PLUG emphasizing the needs of new users" is dead 
wrong. I would venture to say that most people who are members of PDXLUG 
are quite savvy and knowledgable about Linux and OSS in general, so the 
thought that we're geared towards new users is off. If anyone says 
that's elitist, I don't have anything in response other than get over 
it. Just because a group of people are more knowledgable about a subject 
doesn't mean it's their duty to dumb themselves down or teach less 
knowledgable people about the subject.

I believe the people who originally "crossed over", "forked", or "left" 
to join PDXLUG can back me up that the original aim of PDXLUG is what I 
have outlined above. So don't come back and say "who are you to say what 
PDXLUG's mission is???", because it was more of a concensus. I just 
originally had the idea.

Unfortunately PDXLUG meetings break down into discussions about bad 
blood between the two groups. I think it's time to get rid of the name 
so meetings are actually fun to go to and not a place to gossip about 
something that happened 2 YEARS AGO.

Now that I've wasted my lunch hour writing up this e-mail, I'm sure I'll 
get responses that will demand rebuttals from me. If I don't respond 
immediately don't think I'm making a bold statement and running. Some of 
us do have lives and jobs.

--
Matt King
ORIGINAL PDXLUGAAZZZ UNITE
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