Re: Formal Member Registration

["Indranil Das Gupta" <indradg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ravi,

The exact same thing happened at ILUG-Calcutta	.... but what bothers me that over here it is usually the same set of
people who voluntarily come forward and contribute when ever we have some fund-raising to do... and of course everyone
else (those that care to participate) gets the benefit of these funds... not that I am saying that benefits to be
accrued only by ppl who pays... :)

What I had suggested at our LUG was that we have a category for corporate/business membership with a little more
heavier subscription levels... I understand that at ILUG-Blr, GT Enterprises sponsers some expenses from time to
time... what if instead of sponsership (always welcome :) we have a membership category for them. The point that some
of our members found a little disconcerting was that this might lead to development of vested interests within the
group and crass commercialisation in place of the free, open-door policy. However, if we are to formulate a
constitution and adopt it (I have been working on one such draft framework for our LUG for quite sometime) through
general consensus, I am sure that we could build in enough safe-guards against such eventualities.

Here in Calcutta certain corporate entities were only too eager to back us, but their overtures were loaded with hidden
agendas... so after consultation with the active members they were politely told off.

As far as students go, please don't say that you can't spare even something like 100 rupees per year.... but a better
solution IMHO would be if the students (particularly from the tech and engg institutions) could convince their schools
to back the movement by the way of extendingn access to their premises and if possible some computing facility (as
already happening at a few places) to the local LUGs. The students can contribute more IMO by making sure that the
movement will be carried on (after they have left) by their persent juniors, to make sure that the future is in safe,
competent hands...

Therefore we could also have an education/non-profit membership category to be based on mutual assistence basis  (the
LUG members could help these institutional members in adopting Linux within their computing infrastructure, while the
more qualified among the LUG members could help the students by sharing some of their time, knowledge and experience
with them....

Just my 2 p. :)

--Indra.

----------
From: Ravikant K.Rao <ravikant@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: linux-india-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [LIG] Formal Member Registration

	We've already been thro' this on the Ilug-Chennai internal
mailing list .. and unanimously (about 8 or 9 out of 30 active
members, of a total of 120 odd members) rejected "commercialisation"
and bringing in "fees" and suchlike stuff.