Re: Formal Member Registration

["Ravikant K.Rao" <ravikant@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

	Long mail, touching on touchy topics -- enjoy ;)

>>>>> "Indranil" == Indranil Das Gupta <indradg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

    Indranil> .... but what bothers me that over here it is usually
    Indranil> the same set of people who voluntarily come forward and
    Indranil> contribute when ever we have some fund-raising to

	Yes, we _do_ have Lateral Software Inc., OS4 Inc., pitching in 
with timely help, booking stall(s) and stuff.. taking care of the $$
part of any event(s) that we conduct -- the LDD -- Linux Demo Day --
that we conducted went very well, and we got many new members to the
mailing list and suchlike ... 

    Indranil> What I had suggested at our LUG was that we have a
    Indranil> category for corporate/business membership with a little
    Indranil> more heavier subscription levels... I understand that at

	We, at ILUG-Chennai have say on an average 20 guys turning up
for meetings, of which maybe 15 are students -- the remaining are
Lateral/OS4 guys .. so this model wont work out with *ILUG-Chennai* -- 
I don't know how the other LUGs function, and perhaps Thaths, could
elaborate on this, considering that he did visit many LUGs .. 

	We have IIT-M (Dr.Sriram) doing the hosting of our meetings,
and those teas too(!) ;)  But the rest of us all are generally busy
with other stuff to do, and unlike what *seems* ( I do not know for
sure, but I'm guessing ) to be happening in ILUG-Bangalore, where
people who "work with Linux" actually hang out.. people who earn a
living and stuff...  
 
	<rant>

	Please note that I am *NOT* outright saying, "your ideas suck, 
and you suck" -- not at all -- too many people tend to take
suggestions/thoughts/comments/observations personally and begin
flaming. (therefore this disclaimer) ... If someone on this list
doesn't like this, either write back politely, and logically reason
out ... or delete this, tweak procmail to ignore my mails... don't
flame me on my private email with obscenities.. and if you do, be
warned that the LI-coredump-spam-technique(tm) will be resorted to,
from my end.

	</rant>

	Anyway, what I *am* saying is that this "corporate
membership,student membership,blah membership" model won't happen in
ILUG-Chennai ... because we have only students and 2 corporate guys
doing anything...  Guys here *anyway* know what's going on, and who's
funding if necessary and stuff..
	
    Indranil> policy. However, if we are to formulate a constitution
    Indranil> and adopt it (I have been working on one such draft
    Indranil> framework for our LUG for quite sometime) through
    Indranil> general consensus, I am sure that we could build in
    Indranil> enough safe-guards against such eventualities.

	Do keep us updated on this, and you could mail it to me, or
LIG itself, or Prabhu Ramachandran <prabhu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> and
K.Arun <kar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> -- the list admins of ilug-c .. and on
persual, if we like it, we'll steal your ideas (!) ;)

    Indranil> As far as students go, please don't say that you can't
    Indranil> spare even something like 100 rupees per year.... but a

	Actually, we can -- But for *what* ? I still don't understand
*that* ... for commercial stuff, we have corporate entities pooling
the $$$ ... and they're happy, we're happy .. so why get students
doing funny things? I think the attitude of people is *very*
region-specific ... we have so many madrasi guys not on the list, but
will come onto the list, if ilug-c promises to fetch them
jobs/certification/$$ and stuff ... its weird, really .. 


    Indranil> better solution IMHO would be if the students
    Indranil> (particularly from the tech and engg institutions) could
    Indranil> convince their schools to back the movement by the way
    Indranil> of extendingn access to their premises and if possible
    Indranil> some computing facility (as already happening at a few
    Indranil> places) to the local LUGs. The students can contribute

	Even I think this is an excellent idea ... but it isn't going
to happen, not in the near future, atleast... (in chennai) ... 

	The next time you come to madras, please *do* call on
me, and I'll show you my school/college ... My school guys refuse to
run anything other than Novell Netware/NT ... the "Sys Admin" hasn't
heard of Linux .. and in my college... haha..the less said the
better... the sys admin codes in FORTRAN 77 and thinks C sucks .. we
run NT 3.0 or some *really* weird/obnoxious stuff... probably 3 of us
rooted the boxes also ...we have say 250 machines and 2 servers doing
the file-sharing .. and if more than 20 machines are "turned" on
simaltaneously, the network instantly dies... I tried suggesting just
*one* linux box, which would do stuff.. on a trial basis .. but the
admin threw me out ( well, we screwed around with his boxen after
that, but thats a different story altogether ) ... 

	By and Large, by what I see here... and what I gather, by
talking to fellow students is that sys admin's generally don't give a
damn what's happening -- They think they're the coolest dudes ever
created, and are more than happy to be left alone, in the blissful
ignorance than NT 3.0 is the end of all networking.

	The most "reputed" colleges here, including the famed Anna
University ,.. lets people "browse" the internet ... and probably some 
guys on the ILUG-C from Anna can elaborate .. but rest assured that
there exists no Sys Admin <-> Student interaction, and isn't likely to 
happen until these monoliths get overthrown -- well, technically, they 
are, we have root on the machines ... but still, we have computer labs 
that we can't afford to fail... hehe ... :)

    Indranil> more IMO by making sure that the movement will be
    Indranil> carried on (after they have left) by their persent
    Indranil> juniors, to make sure that the future is in safe,
    Indranil> competent hands...

	Again, this seems to be a really ambitious plan .. kids these
days prefer doing "UNIX/C/C++/Java/Blah" courses in
$computer-institution , spend 3 years there, blow half a lakh rupees,
come out with a certificate that says that this guy is a genius
neverbefore seen, and get placed with $It-company ... no one seriously 
gives a damn about "knowledge" or "Linux"( which doesn't *seem* to
have too much $$ in it *AND* involves exercising the mind excessively
[apparently] ) ... face it.. Final Year students in the Computer
Science department haven't heard of Linux ... the staff haven't heard
of it, and don't care, either ... and some irrelevant guys (like me,
in the Civil Engineering department ) try prophesising that Linux is
cool, ... I guess you can imagine what would follow? :)

	With one of my buddies putting in the $$, I embarked on a
semi-ambitious plan to give my school a webpage and be "on the web"
and stuff.. and we went ahead and registered the domain ... and
started filling in content, and approached the Principal of our school 
to tell them that they had a website and we were like having plans on
giving out admin email addresses, and online "applications" and
"information" and blah blah ... and our school summarily threw us out
... only resulted in a really weird situation where I'd gotten my
buddy to register a domain, which was now a waste ... so *I*
personally am *very* wary of educational institutions ... Just go root 
all those NT boxes that those sys admins think are inpenetrable
.. show them that they suck , make sure you don't fail your labs
... and get the heck out of school/college and <blah> <blah> ... it
isn't worth trying to "educate" stupid people who run stupid
educational institutions and lousier still, computer labs in them.

	Cheers

								--ravi
-- 
Ravikant K.Rao : http://www.symonds.net/~ravi/
Primary Email  : <ravi@xxxxxxxxxxx> | PGP: 9544A4A1   GPG: 1024D/C2FC752D