[Ubuntu-be] GRP in Liege

[Pierre Vorhagen]

Hi,

I'm not blaming LiLiT for anything, be sure of that. I'm not blaming anyone 
and I'm confused when I see that it was taken like this... (OK, I do blame 
N-Hitec a wee bit, but they had a lot of difficulties so it's no problem, 
they are forgiven :-)
When I talked of LiLit "dying out", I meant the "cercle d'étudiant" 
part... I was only reflecting the reaction of two 19 year old students, 
passionated about Linux and free software, willing to get active and 
thinking they would meet other motivated young people... (I'm not saying 
that LiLiT is not motivated!)
When I was talking about the lack of structure, I wasn't talking about 
internal LiLiT structure, but about "something central" regarding students 
and linux... (that is why I talked about the "engineers", meaning the 
engineer students of ULg... sorry for not having explained who I really 
meant!)

You see, it is maybe (probably), an error from my side, but I tend to think 
that the first "targets" should be students. For many reasons, but mainly 
because they are in general more quickly OK with trying out something new.
That is why (in this optic and only in this optic, don't get me wrong) I 
put ubuntu-be, LiLiT and anything else, more or less in the same pot, and 
why I said that the LUG is "dying out" and that there is nothing central... 
and I think that it should be said that this is not exclusively my opinion, 
but we actually talked about this with 4 other students.

Now i know that it is easy to say these things, and that they do sound 
pretty much like critics, but it's not a critic... it's simply a students 
(shared) point of view on the situation of Linux organizations in Liège, I 
can only judge by what I (we) see of Linux at Uni and in School, or in the 
places we go. That's why I think that handing out flyers in front of the 
station was a great action, even if its range and effect can't be directly 
identified.
Please don't take bad what I said, maybe I was a bit too direct. As a 
matter of fact, my mail had a constructive goal.

We still have to see if we find some more very interested students, then 
we'll decide how we organize ourselves...

Good evening,
Pierre

snulkid a écrit :(I kept most of Pierre's message for LiLiT commitee members in CC, so 

> sorry for the long email but don't worry : after that, I'm starting 
> to hibernate ;-)
>
> Le lundi 29 octobre 2007 13:28, Pierre Vorhagen a écrit :
>   
>>> (...) the "Liege branch" of ubuntu-be has a problem...
>>>       
>> Yes, the Liège branch has a problem I'd say... in so far that there
>> are not enough (are there any?) people actually *from* Liège
>> (...) snulkid (you consider yourself part of ubuntu-be?
>>     
>
> No
>
>   
>> The problem is, I think, that there is nothing central... the LUG
>> is dying out, or at least not so very active I understood (on the
>> internet site it is still written that the next LMP is the 4th of
>> October... we wanted maybe to come again with Yorrit), there are
>> other organizations that are all more or less trying to do their
>> thing (like Bawet or N-Hitec (the engineers tend to install Linux
>> on their machines by themselves, without even knowing that Lilit or
>> ubuntu-be exist)) and then there is ubuntu-be, that is not really
>> very active, and probably rather non-existent...
>>
>> As the most active group is still LiLiT, maybe start off from
>> there. It is what we had in mind with Yorrit... getting more
>> students to LiLiT, based on Ubuntu of course. We were pretty
>> surprised to see that the average age was about 20 years more than
>> ours, considering that LiLiT is an official student "circle"... We
>> will come to the next LMP, don't know when, and I propose that we
>> discuss this then, with all Liège located ubuntu-be members and
>> LiLiT... Else, if a closer collaboration is not really wished or
>> possible, all ubuntu-be members can meet in a café somewhere in
>> Liège (the Shamrock on top off Rue St Gilles for example, that guy
>> is on Xubuntu and Ubuntu and also regretted that there isn't more
>> activity on Liège.).
>> I don't really care how we do this (if it is with LiLiT, fine for
>> me), but if we had some active people that actually are from Liège
>> and live there, it would still be possible to have an active
>> ubuntu-be branch.
>>     
>
> Pierre, I'm quite confused that an opinion about ubuntu-be leads to 
> comments about LiLiT (and Bawet) but, to make things clear, here are 
> a few points :
>
> * first a personal one : for "internal" reasons I will not comment, 
> I'm currently leaving the LiLiT commitee, and will probably also stop 
> most of my FLOSS-related activities (so, Mark, sorry but I won't 
> attend your winter meeting..).
> I also won't attend this week LiLiT "Linux Meeting Party" but anybody 
> is welcome, of course :
> http://www.lilit.be/index.php?page=contact#LMP
>
> * LiLiT website was just out of date. I just updated it.
> LiLiT is certainly not "dying out", at least compared to most other 
> LUGs, and even if they currently lack people, Bawet is regurlarly 
> organising LIPs, in alternance with LiLiT (who will maybe organise 
> another one before end of 2007).
> Just have a look at our "old news" :
> http://www.lilit.be/index.php?page=archives
> activity reports :
> http://www.lilit.be/wiki/index.php?header=full&page=PvAgOr050420#Annexe1%3Arapportdactivit%E9s2004
> http://www.lilit.be/wiki/index.php?header=full&page=PvAgOr060308#Annexe1%3Arapportdactivit%E9s2005
> http://www.lilit.be/wiki/index.php?header=full&page=PvAgOr070308#Annexe1%3Arapportdactivit%E9s2006
> and our (rather incomplete) photo galleries to get an idea of what we 
> did.
>
> * about the canceled Ubuntu/N-Hitec Party : if someone is to be blamed 
> on the LiLiT side, this is me because I should have re-contacted 
> Laurent earlier (we met at LiLiT LIP on July 7th) and be more careful 
> about the LIP : it surreptitiously moved from a "N-Hitec LIP with 
> LiLiT support" to a "LiLiT-in-charge-of-it LIP".
> On October 18th, LiLiT had a meeting, where people said once again 
> there were unavailable on a working day; our president also inform 
> Laurent had set an appointment with him next Monday. This was just 
> before Laurent canceled the event.
> So, you can blame N-Hitec, ubuntu-be local members, maybe the ULg 
> bureaucracy, maybe me, but not LiLiT.
>
> * it has always been clear that LiLiT (or Bawet) is not going to give 
> support to "engineers" or other professionals : we cannot do that 
> (not even invoice something), given our statutes. N-Hitec can, I 
> guess.
>
> * LiLiT is an ULg circle for historical reasons. Right now, among our 
> 26 members, we have 2 ULg students and 3 ULg workers. We would be 
> glad you "get us more students", even "based on Ubuntu of course" (we 
> are "distro-neutral"). But first, LiLiT is not involved in (or part 
> of) ubuntu-be and second, we made several attemps in the past years 
> (October 25th would have been a new one) to target the students 
> without any real success. We also had contacts with other circles 
> (Fédé staff, AEES).
> So, any collaboration can be discussed with the LiLiT committee 
> (g-traxx mentioned a "school-related" action...) but don't expect an 
> overwhelming enthousiasm after so many trials.
>
> * LiLiT is well structured (see 
> http://www.lilit.be/index.php?page=asbl). When dealing with 
> non-structured groups like ubuntu-be, we should at least have a clear 
> speaker in front of us. That is not the case in Liege, so maybe the 
> first point would be 1 or 2 people to take this job.
>
> Regards and all my sincere wishes for your coming actions
>