What to see and do at Linuxcon

[Jerry Feldman]

> 
> 
>  Mike Bilow wrote:
> 
> It is not the dues I have problems with.  It is the absence of a mission.  When
> you could simply round up people in a room because they had a common interest
> in computers, and discussion could concern soldering technique, the BCS did not
> so much require a formal mission.  Now these odd toys are in every office and
> in many homes, they are sold at Lechmere, and the BCS is bewildered.
> 
> I am really appalled by the idea of turning the Megameeting over to a
> professional trade show producer.  I go to that crap all the time.  My God, I
> even had free passes to "E-Mail World" a couple of months ago!  We do not need
> yet another one of these things.  The BCS should not be in the business of
> playing a captive audience.
> 
> I do not have all the answers, but I can see that commercializing BCS like this
> is a serious mistake.  Perhaps the proper business model is the non-profit
> Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports.  Turning the Megameeting
> into a brand-name and selling it is the beginning of the end.  I expect that
> the Linux group, if no one else, would understand this.
There are some issues that do need to be addressed. Megameeting is not my 
issue. Actually, I would prefer that something like that be almost exclusively 
volunteer. What is really happening is that the BCS is shifting from its 
traditional roots as a volunteer organization with staff people to support the 
volunteers, to a more classic non-profit model. There is some good and bad in 
this. The bad is that the volunteers that deliver virtually all the services 
of the BCS are not altogether pleased. On the positive side, volunteers tend 
to be unreliable. We (eg. us volunteers) create a "service". Then, that 
service becomes popular. The lead volunteers get burned out, and decide to 
leave with noone ready to take over. Members who used that service get upset 
because their BCS is the one that delivers that service. What a professional 
staff can do is to ensure coordination, and try to maintain the service. The 
contention comes when the staff decides how the volunteers must run that 
service. In the case of this mailing list, for instance, staff might decide 
that the list me moderated, and off topic descussions like this are to be 
suppressed. IMHO, there needs to be a balance. It is the volunteers that bring 
skills, enthusiasm, and knowlege to the services like BBS, mailing lists, user 
group meetings. It is staff that manages the fixed facilities and equipment 
that is shared between the user groups. The BOD has some very difficult 
decisions ahead. Membership in user groups in general is declining. We need to 
really chart our course. The decisions will be painful. There are many people 
out there who badmouth the BOD for being jerks and out of touch. The bottom 
line is that decisions must be made. If we revert to the traditional model, we 
will shed some really good services. We are providing training courses to 
schools systems for teacher certification. The public service programs have 
some costs that come out of dues, but there are some revenue streams. We also 
get grants. 

--- I appologise to the linux comminity for the harrangue.  

-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Jerry Feldman            Unix Systems - Development Engineering
Digital Equipment Corp.  gaf at zk3.dec.com
110 Spitbrook Rd.        Mailstop: ZKO3-3/Y25
Nashua, NH 03062-9987    (603)881-2970, DTN:381-2970
Member Boston Computer Society BOD : gaf at bcs.org
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