Re: what do the LUGs do?

[Guy Brand <bug@chimie.u-strasbg.fr>]

On Thu, 14 Jan 1999, Rik van Riel wrote:

RvR> Now that we've reached a reasonable number of member
RvR> LUGs, I think it's time for each LUG member to tell
RvR> us what kind of activities they're doing with their
RvR> LUG and what they feel is lacking...

  The 'Flammekueche Connection' aka LUG de Strasbourg, started in April 98,
and today, we're more than a hundred persons involved. Last year, in May,
we've organized a "Journée des Unix et Logiciels Libres" (Free Software and
Unix Day) which gathered 500 visitors during the day. This event, was so
suprisingly funny, that we're now working on the second edition, called les
"Journées du Libre", which will take place on March 26 and 27, in
Strasbourg, France. A pre-program is already available (in french) at
http://tux.u-strasbg.fr/JL2/

  The LUG meets monthly, and usualy 40 to 50 members attend these meetings,
where beer and whats are welcome. We have starting a promising partnership
with a local Unix/PC reseller (Transtec, http://www.transtec.fr) and a small
company selling 'Linux Support and Solutions' (Arkane Media,
http://www.arkane-media.net).

  The key stone of the LUG is its mailing list, where we exchange tips and
tricks, advises, experiences and information. Several peripheral mailing
lists are available for group work (coding fans, organizationnal aspects,
noisy discussions, etc.). We have also a small Web server located at
http://tux.u-strasbg.fr. We soon expect to be given (by our partner) a
server for the purposes of the LUG (making 'on demand' CDs for members,
hosting web and mailing lists services, and so on).

  ca 40% of the members are 'academical' users (mostly from Universities),
and this rate is now stable. This also means that we have some good contacts
with non Educationnal users or private professionnal users of Linux.
Recently a small association (a legal for of grouped action in France) has
been set up to execute every action the LUG cannot legally take (such as
contracting an insurance when organizing meetings, or handling money if
partners want to support us that way, or when giving talks to computer
staffs).

  Inside University, we do our best to promote and help users with Linux, or
free software in general. There is much to do in that field to get rid of
the 'Microsoft reflex' some collegues show. Recently, we've studied and
given seminars on alternate 'office-like' software suites, and we're now
expecting university to negociate and promote this alternatives to M$'s
products, which are daily leading to communication and data exchange
problems for our collegues. A conference on 'free software' (logiciel
libre) is also planned.

  Oh, a last point. Our Universities have been very receptive in the past to
"non Microsoft solutions". Basically, Apple's Macintosh was the prefered
client platform for years. During the last three years, things have changed
a lot, but we feel like the Linux phenomenon has a very good audience too,
as people (students of course ! but not only) are expecting a more
productive and creative way to deal with computer stuff. Linux is here for
that too... IMHO.

  BuG

--
  Secretary, LUG de Strasbourg                    lug@tux.u-strasbg.fr
  Web site : http://tux.u-strasbg.fr

-
European Universities' Linux User Groups -- Action list
http://humbolt.geo.uu.nl/eulug/