I'm all for it. To be honest, this may be a plan that allows us to better concentrate our efforts. I live in the city, and think its the best place on earth. (I don't know if any of you have noticed yet, but the chi-python group I belong to won the bid to bring pycon 2008 to chicago - It's going to be around o'hare) BUT ManChicken will have access to some of the best geeks in the country by being in the same town as UIUC. Freddy has access to ISU and Knox it looks like. I'd personally be willing to step up to a larger role in the city itself, because that pretty much what I'm limited to. I don't drive for ecological reasons, and rely on the buses, trains and my shoes to get me anywhere I need to be. An illinois group could direct the efforts of the smaller regional teams and better direct our resources. What do you think? Unrelated, Freddy seems to skate - don't know if anyone else here does, but if you need decks, trucks or whatever let me know because I manage the web business for the biggest shop in the state. On that note, we're planning on expanding and I'm playing around with the idea of making a webcast show about trusting a 22 year old who understands tech to build up your web business in 6 months (before the next snowboard season starts). I've got an empty storefront and a budgt to work with, getting pretty excited. I'm going to name drop OSS left and right, give tutorials, use desktop linux etc. Am planning on producing the show with open source as well. Details to follow on this Propaganda project of mine. -Max <div>On 3/1/07, Freddy Martinez <<a href="mailto:freddymartinez9@gmail.com">freddymartinez9@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> I say go for it. I am all about Chicago. It is the city I went to school in (downtown and everything), I skateboard there, I eat there, most my best friends live there, I have family there etc. However, please realize that we are part of a larger Ubuntu community. Sure we are comfortable with each other and are friends, however, the one this we all share in common is Ubuntu. There are Ubuntu-ers in Germany (Asac) the Philippines (Jucato), the UK (Riddell) and we all work together. Therefore, I agree with Richard (mostly). There is always room for collaborating. This way I can get the 17 people that I have using / interested in Kubuntu (all KDE, w00t!) on campus part of a larger team. I can work with the whole college, I can work with Western Illinois, I can work with Peoria and Galesburg. It gives us a wider scope and lets us with resources use them. /me waits for Nixternal to convert CPS to Ubuntu ... hopefully. <div><div>On 3/1/07, Rich Johnson <<a href="mailto:nixternal@ubuntu.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> nixternal@ubuntu.com </a>> wrote:</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div>There is going to eventually be an Illinois team, nothing we can do about it, and it is something the state needs. My reasoning behind doing what I did tonight is a couple of things: 1) If there is going to be an Illinois team, WE (Ubuntu Chicago) will be the initial drivers of it, instead of someone else coming in w/o any LoCo experience and possibly causing a flop. 2) It allows us to expand. We will always be Ubuntu Chicago, but we are a part of the state of Illinois, so it allows us to have a larger footprint behind anything we may drive in the future. 3) A lot of members (i.e. Freddy) are college bound to the various colleges throughout the state, with Ubuntu Illinois, these members will be allowed to create sub-chapters under the Illinois title instead of the Chicago title. Would be weird if you were Ubuntu Chicago at Southern Illinois. 4) We need farmers! OK, I made this up My main reason was that if this was eventually going to happen, with my experience as well as all of yours, I would rather have a successfull driving force where eventually it can be turned over to future Illinois members. Also I am working closely on a "hush-hush" project with Ubuntu and family and this is part of my master plan on world domination! -- Rich Johnson <a href="mailto:nixternal@ubuntu.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">nixternal@ubuntu.com</a> GPG Key: 0x2E2C0124 </div>-- Ubuntu-us-chicago mailing list <a href="mailto:Ubuntu-us-chicago@lists.ubuntu.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Ubuntu-us-chicago@lists.ubuntu.com </a> <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-chicago" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-chicago</a> </blockquote></div> Best, -- Freddy Martinez Kubuntu. Linux for human beings. <a href="http://www.chi.ubuntu-us.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">www.chi.ubuntu-us.org</a> </message> -- Ubuntu-us-chicago mailing list <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:Ubuntu-us-chicago@lists.ubuntu.com">Ubuntu-us-chicago@lists.ubuntu.com</a> <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-chicago" target="_blank"> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-chicago</a> </blockquote></div>