[PLUG] Fwd: LUGs and Mailing lists

Mon Sep 21 06:46:51 IST 2020

---------- Forwarded message ---------
அனுப்புநர்: Shrinivasan T <tshrinivasan at gmail.com>
Date: திங்., 21 செப்., 2020, முற்பகல் 12:00
Subject: LUGs and Mailing lists
To: <ilugc at freelists.org>

Today is software freedom day.
FSFTN and VillupuramGLUG celebrated with live events.

https://classmeet.chiguru.tech is a Bigbluebutton Instance hosted by
http://chiguru.tech team. Villupuram GLUG used this to host several
sessions like Wikipedia, Inkscape, GIMP, Linux distros, Stellarium,
Blender, Android alternates, Free Software philosophy etc.

Each session had a separate link to join that room. We can enter any room.
The team members invite us and explain their topic, just like we do in the
physical stalls at any Software freedom day celebrations.

FSFTN had live talks and discussions at https://live.swecha.org/fsftn/

GDPR, Understanding Privacy in the Digital Era, Knowledge Freedom -
Hardware & Software Perspective, FSFTN Works & Community Contributions, A
Discussion on Gender & Technology were few topics discussed.

Hope Swecha.org also used BigBlueButton. This seems a good alternative to
zoom, Google meet etc. Though we have JitSI, we should explore
BigBlueButton also to host meetings and online training.

Tons of thanks for both the communities for the great events.

There is only one issue I found. Most of the speakers used windows for
presentations and demos. I cant resist this. Being part of  Free Software
Communities, we should believe what we preach. If we dont believe free
software as the base OS, who will listen to us?

What is the main use of these demo stalls, talk on such events?
The participants can see all these talks, shows on YouTube itself. These
events are not for the audience. They are majorly for the stall owners,
speakers only. By giving a talk, by giving a demo, the speaker only learns
much. If the speaker dont know how to use linux, then it is the first task
to teach her/him to use linux.

I am from the very old school. Indian Linux Users Group, Chennai. ilugc.in
There are few rules in our group.

1. Mailing list the only primary mode of communication. IRC is there for
cool hangout chats.
2. All speakers should use only GNU/Linux for all the talks. Why? We are
Linux users group. The name has the answer. There is no place for OS like
Windows or Mac in our meetings. People are very rigid on this rule. I have
seen they have asked to stop the talks, when the speaker shows Windows OS.
They can be little empathetic. But that would lead to the events like we
had today.

What is the use of a free software community, if we can not use Linux as
the OS for our main activities? We can have excuses on office laptops. We
should as for linux even in office laptops.

Atleast for the public events like SFD, we should be very rigid on showing
only Linux OS. We should live what we speak. Otherwise, we will be
preaching fake things only.

Ignoring the mailing list/blog is another issue I face in both the
communities. All the planning, event organizing are happening only on
whatsapp and telegram. Though FSFTN has a matrix channel,  I dont see any
major communications happening there. (This was a few months ago. Nowadays,
I am not using matrix. Only IRC) They can be in all the social media, like
facebook, instagram, telegram, whatsapp etc. But When they have time to
post in all such social media, I am not sure why they ignore to post in
mailing list.

If we can not teach people how to use mail and mailing list, how can we
teach them to use free software and how can we create more contributors?

"Nowadays, people are not using mails". This is a silly reason to ignore
mailing lists. "Go to people, where they are". This may be a reason. But,
it should be "Go to people, where they are and bring them to good place".
As free software communities, we should not go and settle with private,
gated walls.

Oh yes. Over the decades, all the LUGs mailing lists are dying, all over
India. Nobody seems using it. Everybody are using only Social media like
facebook and Instagram. So what? Are we going to promote Windows and
Pirated Software, telling that all of our friends are using the same? We
wont do that as Free Software Community. Right? Use the same for using
mailing lists too.

http://chennaitrekkers.org/join/ check here. A non tech, trekking community
uses a mailing list as primary communication channel.
https://groups.google.com/g/sachennaitrekkingclub/about this is the mailing
list with 27 thousand members. If it can do so, why can a GLUG use a
mailing list?

FSFTN is making more GLUGs in many colleges. I can not find the mailing
lists/blogs/websites for the GLUGS. Why so? What is preventing them to say
some hard rules on using mailing lists?

If we dont follow open communications, how can we say as "we are working on
building communities for open culture, open source, open data" etc?

In Tamil, there is a old saying. 'படிப்பது மகாபாரதம். இடிப்பது பெருமாள்
கோயில்'. It means as "Preach God on public and destroy temples in the
background". I feel the same when the free software communities, not using
public mailing lists and showing windows on the demos/talks.

I may be a seems like a old school nut. But, remember the basics always.
Free software communities are not measured by numbers. The quality they
give the people's life is more important than the number games.

My humble request is

1. Come back to mailing lists
2. Make mailing lists as primary channel
3. Whatever you discuss in other media, leave notes or minutes to the
mailing lists
4. Put a strong rule as "Show only linux on public demos"
5. Make Linux as primary os that you use daily. Live what you say.

Why do I care so much on these? Linux is not only a OS. I see Linux as a
LifeStyle.  I was a closed minded person till I was using Windows.  Linux
changed my life. It not only opened the source code. It opens people's mind
and heart.

Linux gave me loads of knowledge, job, fun, tech/non-tech skills. Linux
Users Groups are the reason for it. A LUG can change many people lives.
ILUGC gave me more than my Engineering college/degree gave. I want the same
sprint to be alive in all LUGs we have. The taste of software freedom
should reach all the LUG members. It can happen only when we live a open
source way, in all possible ways.

-- 
Regards,
T.Shrinivasan

My Life with GNU/Linux : http://goinggnu.wordpress.com
Free E-Magazine on Free Open Source Software in Tamil : http://kaniyam.com

Get Free Tamil Ebooks for Android, iOS, Kindle, Computer :
http://FreeTamilEbooks.com
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