[buug] Reviving CalLUG

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Mark Lu (excelblue at gmail.com):

> The real advantage to bringing back CalLUG is the ability to reserve
> rooms on-campus for free.

Yes, indeed.

CalLUG got a lot of mileage out of that, tending to use Soda Hall for
that.  There was a minor problem that access into the building was
restricted after a certain hour.

> I have experience with running my own Mailman, though, to be honest, I
> think we should just look at registering a domain name and leeching
> off Google Groups if we just want a list that works, is easily (and
> publicly) searchable, and is reliable.

I notice without objection your GMail address.  ;->  FWIW, some of us
decline to turn over our computing lives to Google, Inc., and enjoy 
the functional advantages of being able to enforce our own policies,
implement the sort of antispam _we_ want, not be subject to 
Google, Inc.'s takedown policies, not have to deal with yet more 
of Google, Inc.'s advertising and tracking[1], and so on.

Also FWIW, http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Linux_PR/newlug.html points out
another consideration:

  23. Walk the walk.

  It's painfully grotesque to see so-called Linux user groups mailing out
  announcements using MS-Outlook, Eudora, or Netscape Messenger for
  MS-Windows (or MacOS), or other proprietary mailers for legacy operating
  systems -- and visibly maintaining their Web sites using MS Front Page,
  Adobe Page Mill, or other junkware -- and hosting their LUG mailing
  lists on Yahoo Groups (formerly eGroups and Onelist, formerly MakeList)
  or Google Groups. Fortunately, these LUGs are in the minority, but they
  convey the message of Linux being suitable in neither desktop nor server
  roles.

  If you are going to promote and explore Linux, you need to _use it_.

Google Groups is not only proprietary software, but also _hosted_
proprietary software, i.e., you don't even have a copy of it in the
first place, nor do you host your data.


As a third FWIW, in the recent past, I helped Peter Knagg overcome the
obstacles to migrating PenLUG to an Exim4/SA-Exim/Mailman setup, and I
believe he's mighty pleased so far.

Anyway, as Dennis Miller used to say, 'But that's just my opinion.  I
could be wrong.'


[1] http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/archives/2009/12/08/personalized-search-opacity.html
http://kitenet.net/~joey/blog/entry/adieu_google/