Texas LoCo Team discussion

[Travis Beaty]

Hello there.  As I said at the meeting, I've only gotten connected with you 
folks (beyond occasionally reading the mailing list postings) within the last 
day or so.  And although I spoke a little at the meeting, I'm pretty much 
still in lurker mode.  But, since you asked for it :-D, here are a few 
thoughts that I've had given what little I know about what is going on.

First, it has been brought up that Texas is an awfully big state.  In fact, as 
a state it is larger than the entire country of France.  And our population 
centers aren't clustered in one spot.  Dallas.  Houston.  El Paso.  Austin.  
All in different spots, and in the case of Houston v. El Paso, a helluva long 
distance apart.  Now then, it has been said that a lot of the discussion of a 
state LoCo has been prompted by the higher up's in Ubuntu's food chain who 
want LoCo's organized by state.  Some of these folks may not fathom how large 
Texas actually is, and honestly the idea strikes me as something akin to 
creating a Europe LoCo.

I am not saying that we shouldn't have a Texas LoCo.  Nor am I saying we 
should.  What I am saying, is that logistics might be a nightmare at times, 
especially when it comes to physical movement, meetings, etc. on a state 
level.  If it's decided to hold a Texas meeting in Houston, that will put 
folks in El Paso, and really even in Dallas, in a bit of a lurch.  Even a 
meeting in Austin (which is pretty much the organization in the middle) would 
be rough for many to make it to.  If folks started to feel as if they can 
never make state-level meetings because of the distance, they may begin 
feeling disenfranchised, followed close behind by much drama, crying and 
gnashing of teeth.

Given this, it was mentioned that perhaps we should thumb our noses at the 
organizers and just do it our own way.  I don't think it needs to come to 
that.  But I do think that we need to try to explain to them the situation.  
El Paso is only *40* miles closer to Houston than it is to Los Angeles.  
Although Texas isn't a "national" entity, it would need to be treated as such.

I'll sum it up again by saying that yes, perhaps a Texas LoCo is a good idea.  
But it would through necessity be run -- and perhaps even recognized -- as 
damn near a national LoCo.

Finally, one other thing that I've learned from experience, because what I've 
seen so far is giving me a few flashbacks.  I can't help but notice a lot of 
tension building over the issue, and although we all have emotions and 
positions, everyone on both sides of the fence really need to continue to keep 
their cool, stating their positions passionately but respectfully.  One of the 
big dangers would be creating a Texas Implosion instead of a Texas LoCo.

"Dude.  I think we just blew Texas up."
"Dude.  Who was wearing those smokin' pink boots?"

That would not be a cool conversation to take place at Canonical.  :-D  
Seriously, though, we should keep the discussion up, and keep our bearings.  I 
really think there are strengths and weaknesses with either a Texas or 
regional LoCo's, and what those are will become evident with time and 
discussion.

-- Travis, a.k.a., Muffinx.






On Sunday 29 November 2009 10:56:31 pm Jeremy Fluhmann wrote:
> So taking a step back, let's discuss how everyone sees the Texas LoCo Team
> moving forward.  I've only been around the Ubuntu groups for just under 3
> years, but I was around when the move was made to have only state level
> "approved" teams.  I'm sure it wasn't as big a deal to me since I wasn't
> part of an existing regional group.  I pretty much had the same role then
>  as I'm taking now with contributing to a state team effort.
> 
> From my understanding, the existing regional groups were contacted prior to
> this big push for a state level team.  A couple of the regional groups were
> not interested and I'm thinking this may be were the "feeling of being left
> out / bypassed" is coming from.  Maybe?  I don't know, but that would be my
> impression.  If someone says that they're not interested, I would guess
>  that they weren't interested.
> 
> Something that keeps being mentioned (and was mentioned two years ago when
> these same conversations took place) is "I don't see the benefit of a state
> loco over a regional loco".  I'm probably backwards, but I've been trying
>  to see the benefit of a regional loco over a state loco.  There's already
>  a well established Linux User Group nearby where I live and I don't see
>  where starting Yet Another Regional LoCo out here would benefit anyone. 
>  I'm one of the ones where all of my LoCo involvement would continue to be
>  with the Texas LoCo Team, and all of my regional Linux stuff would be with
>  my friendly neighborhood LUG.  I wouldn't encourage a regional LoCo out
>  here, but I also wouldn't discourage one.  If someone wanted to start one
>  out here, that's fine, but my focus would still be towards the state
>  group. Again, it sounds like I may be in the minority.  And I'm okay with
>  that :-)
> 
> I'm glad that we're getting some good discussion in one place, out in the
> open.  I encourage everyone, including those that would consider themselves
> self-proclaimed "lurkers" to contribute their thoughts.  I see
>  conversations on IRC getting better at directing people to move some
>  discussions to this mailing list.  I'm similar to Lee in that I keep up
>  with the list more than I do with most of the other channels.  I'm also on
>  IRC and IM most of the day, too.
> 
> Cheers,
> Jeremy