一些外国同事给我的建议：关于 LUG 的聚会，赞助和日常运作
Jarod Wang
Hi Gurus,
Could anyone please tell me our Corp.'s attitude/policy on sponsoring a local Linux User Group? Or if this is not the right place to discuss this question, please contact me offline. Any hint or experience sharing would be highly appreciated. Thanks.
--
Regards,
-Jarod
>>>> 来自 BALUG 的发起人之一 Arthur Tyde 的回复
Hi Jarod,
Well - here are some things to consider. In China it is illegal to host unregistered public assemblies. I know this sounds stupid, and it is... (LUG's and political rallies seems to require the same paperwork) You'll need probably government approval to start a real Linux users group. I worked with a number of folks in Beijing about four years ago to start a LUG initially sponsored by Intel. Beijing was very difficult but Shenzhen may have much more liberal policies. I am sure Oracle could act as the sponsor - I'd check with your local marketing rep. or even talk with the MD. This is basically free PR for Oracle. Get your local marketing team excited about the idea and you are almost done!
Also - ask your site manager when would be the best time to do meetings. They may not be able to do weekends because additional cost would be required for security and reception. I think you're odds of getting a room during the week are better. Personally - I would not host at a company location but due to the legal issues you may have no choice??? If you have no other choice - talk to the Oracle University people. They have facilities that are very much tailored to dealing strangers visiting - tell them it's a great no-cost way to promote their class agendas.
As for the operation of the actual user group...
Running a LUG requires a lot of skill to make it interesting and insure growth. Make sure you have the time for it. It can be a thankless job where you are often the only person doing the work. On the other hand, you'll meet lots of great people and enhance your personal network. The best advice I can offer you is to BE CONSISTENT. This means, if your meetings are Wed on the 1st week of the month at 7:00 PM - then NEVER DEVIATE FROM THIS SCHEDULE.
I recommend feeding people - in San Francisco we had many sponsors of the group but the meetings were always held in Chinatown at a local restaurant with a big banquet room. We used the karaoke system for presentations - it was a really ideal setup. Local companies contributed money to help lower the cost of the food, or cover a speakers transport (airfare), other items like books, DVD's, equipment, t-shirts, and all sorts of other stuff which we would raffle off as door prizes. The agenda never changed, the date was always predictable, people got fed first (banquet or buffet style), listened to an interesting speaker, won some stuff - and many would continue the meeting well into the night at local bars.
If Shenzhen already has a Linux Users Group - you might want to start a Virtualization Users Group - that might bring in a better class of attendees.
Anyway - happy to lend some ideas or talk about it. I ran BALUG for about 8 years and it certainly had it's rewards. I'm cc'ing my management on this - they are very connected guys in the Linux space and might have some ideas!
Cheers, Arthur...
--
Arthur F. Tyde III - Solutions Architect
Linux and Open Source
Oracle (Philippines) Corporation
19/F Pacific Star Building (10953)
Makati 1200, Republic of Philippines
>>>> 来自 PenLUG 发起人之一 William Ward 的回复
We created PenLUG with some help from Oracle originally - this was when "Unbreakable Linux" was new - and I got a lot of free swag from Todd Trichler to hand out at the meetings, which were held at Oracle. However after a while we lost our meeting space as Facilities didn't want to have meetings held at Oracle which were open to the public.
William Ward
Software Architect
Infrastructure Systems Development
Oracle Corporation
只是一些建议，大家看看吧，美国的成熟的 LUG 模式拿到了中国不一定适用，但是多少应该还是有些值得我们参考的地方的。欢迎拍砖。
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Best regards,
-Jarod Wang / 王振
Anders Ma
有想法的朋友,可以去wiki贴自己的想法!
http://wiki.szlug.org/w/Organization
Thanks!
2008/12/25 Jarod Wang <jarodw...@gmail.com>:
--
Regards
Anders
Yuan Yijun
>>>>> 我提出的问题：ORACLE 对于赞助当地的 LUG 持何种态度/政策？
>
超长的回复，太牛B了，一个人可以参与一个LUG八年，当初我还觉得一个人在深圳能不能呆超过一年……
--
bbbush ^_^
Yuan Yijun
> 嗯, 很感谢Jarod! 这个mail的信息现在来评判似乎显得仓促一些,不如等到bbbush提议的秘书+顾问+委员会架构成熟后,由秘书/委员会仔细分析讨论可行性后再做投票决策!
>
我觉得你没有完全理解我的意思。这周六大家有个碰面的机会(InfoQ)，有空的话我会详细解释我的想法。
--
bbbush ^_^
Anders Ma
Frederic Muller
(Sorry for using English 可是我的中文真的不行！) Sharing my experience running the Beijing LUG we try to stay away from money as much as possible. So no membership fees (it's more work to collect and keep track of who paid than paying by ourselves) and we use sponsors for things we really need such as hosting. The rest is usually shared among members, the president usually pays for the domain name and that's about all the cost we have.
We printed T-shirts and members paid for them (someone had to advance the money though). The last batch was sponsored by Intel (took 1 year to get the money back though) and in 2008 Red Flag Chinese 2000 offered to pay for our drinks at regular meetings. For special occasion we always have 1-3 companies (usually members' company) helping out and we share the rest (mainly food/drinks).
We manage to get venue for free assuming we're eating there. Some people eat more than others, some don't eat at all.
I'll agree with Arthur that "Running a LUG requires a lot of skill to make it interesting and insure growth. Make sure you have the time for it. It can be a thankless job where you are often the only person doing the work." but you might be able to split responsibilities. Regular meetings should be the heart of your group, that's how you meet people and it really gives great rewards.
Then you can also manage to get free (IT/Linux) books from local publishers or discounts from online stores.
Hope that helps.
Fred
Beijing LUG
Anders Ma
> the heart of your group, that's how you meet people and it really gives
> great rewards.
That's true. According the current state of SZLUG, building the
proceduce of regular meetings is an important issue.
I appreciate you sharing your BLUG experiences. Thanks a lot!
--
Anders
2008/12/25 Frederic Muller <fr...@beijinglug.org>:
Frederic Muller
It's just a matter of kicking myself in the butt and coming to Shenzhen.
We could definitely talk about running a LUG with meetings, what it takes and what to avoid. I've been a member of the Beijing LUG since its first meeting on November 19th 2002 (we had membership fees back then - 10 RMB - to pay for the domain name) so I can tell you what we did right and what we did wrong.
Just let me know when it's convenient. I'll probably bring along another good friend of mine, Freeflying, who's also a BLUG member and used to be the head of the Ubuntu China Locoteam. He is with me here in Qingxi.
Thanks.
Fred
Anders Ma
> about an hour from Shenzhen. I missed the last 6 months of Beijing LUG
> events (managed to be at the December meeting). Maybe we could organize
> something in Shenzhen altogether. I will return to Beijing on 27th in the
> evening and back in 清溪 on January 4th for a couple of weeks again.
>
if possible, I'd like we have a meeting when you come back 清溪 form beijing.
> It's just a matter of kicking myself in the butt and coming to Shenzhen.
lol, kicking your butt is really a issue.
>
> We could definitely talk about running a LUG with meetings, what it takes
> and what to avoid. I've been a member of the Beijing LUG since its first
> meeting on November 19th 2002 (we had membership fees back then - 10 RMB -
> to pay for the domain name) so I can tell you what we did right and what we
> did wrong.
>
It is interest, I look forward to listening the stories behind BLUG.
> Just let me know when it's convenient. I'll probably bring along another
> good friend of mine, Freeflying, who's also a BLUG member and used to be the
> head of the Ubuntu China Locoteam. He is with me here in Qingxi.
>
OK, we'll arrange this. If having any update information, we'll mail
to you ASAP.
Thanks a lot!
--
Regards
Anders
Zoom.Quiet
>>>>> 我提出的问题：ORACLE 对于赞助当地的 LUG 持何种态度/政策？
>
这个水有点深和混,,,
--
http://zoomquiet.org
'''过程改进乃是催生可促生靠谱的人的组织!'''
PE keeps evolving organizations which promoting people be good!
Yuan Yijun
> Actually since August I have been spending most of my time at 清溪 which is
> about an hour from Shenzhen. I missed the last 6 months of Beijing LUG
> events (managed to be at the December meeting). Maybe we could organize
> something in Shenzhen altogether. I will return to Beijing on 27th in the
> evening and back in 清溪 on January 4th for a couple of weeks again.
>
> It's just a matter of kicking myself in the butt and coming to Shenzhen.
>
> We could definitely talk about running a LUG with meetings, what it takes
> and what to avoid. I've been a member of the Beijing LUG since its first
> meeting on November 19th 2002 (we had membership fees back then - 10 RMB -
> to pay for the domain name) so I can tell you what we did right and what we
> did wrong.
>
> Just let me know when it's convenient. I'll probably bring along another
> good friend of mine, Freeflying, who's also a BLUG member and used to be the
> head of the Ubuntu China Locoteam. He is with me here in Qingxi.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Fred
>
Hi, Fred
/me suprised to hear that, should have visited freeflying's earlier.
The only thing I worry about is that BLUG is said to be all about
beer. Personally I like all kinds of activities, beer or not, small
gatherings, formal presentations, etc. But I don't know how others
think about the beer part.
Also formal presentations may not be all well received: people do not
love technics that much as they say. Thus formal presentations is
often over valued, especially that formal presentations is more
expensive to set up.
Talking about regular meetings, it is also expensive, too. This is why
we do not have regular meetings. We only meet when some one has some
good idea. In this way, the one who calls for a meeting will get the
max satisfaction. I can think that if regular meeting is set up, then
it will turn out to be more expensive if we skip any.
So it is hard to keep an LUG healthy. Any idea?
Thanks!
--
bbbush ^_^
Frederic Muller
Well obviously you haven't been looking at what we can do while drinking
beer! 3 major Linux and Open source conferences (Linux Developer
Symposium with Andrew Morton, Gnome.Asia Summit and OOoCon) this year, 3
Software Freedom Day events co-organized, 2 Linux/OSS topics every month
with great speakers (from the group or outside of the group), several
groups doing their own things including "coding for fun" 1 afternoon
every month (on OSS projects), a Gnome User Group starting, College OSS
promotion group, special group orders for some gadgets, free library and
support to other user groups in Beijing and elsewhere. But yes we do
sometimes have a few beers and some yang rou chuan'r. You know promoting
Linux should be FUN!
Now back to the topic, presentations don't have to be technical, ours
are a mixed bag of technical and non-technical topics, we've also had an
install fest just for girls in June (and not much beer). Meetings cost
nothing, just the time to prepare them. If you don't go you don't pay,
people who don't want to eat or drink are also welcome and don't pay
anything. So definitely not expensive. Now I agree that having a good
meeting place is difficult, and of course some people do have to eat so
the restaurant is ok with giving you a roof, a projector and free wifi.
Seems you don't like regular meetings, but for a lot of us in Beijing
that what motivates us to be part of a LUG, and that's also what makes
us do so much together. What do you guys do to your community? how do
you promote Linux together? How do you contribute back? For us meetings
help us to do all this, and much more...
And yes it takes a lot of my time... but so much fun!
Jarod Wang
Regarding to the contents of the regular meeting, it can be versatile and flexible. A regular meeting can consist of dinner (beer part), formal/informal presentations, and a socialising part, however, any part can be omitted if there is no good idea to share (actually I believe this won't happen at all). The import thing and hard part is to maintain it.
In a word, the regular meeting is necessary.
kewei song
Zhang Le
> Just let me know when it's convenient. I'll probably bring along another
> good friend of mine, Freeflying, who's also a BLUG member and used to be the
> head of the Ubuntu China Locoteam. He is with me here in Qingxi.
Oops, that fat ass is still in Guangdong, I thought he had returned to
Beijing... lol
--
Zhang Le, Robert - Gentoo Developer
http://www.gentoo-cn.org
http://r0bertz.blogspot.com
http://zhllg.spaces.live.com
http://www.szlug.org
Zhang Le
> Talking about regular meetings, it is also expensive, too. This is why
> we do not have regular meetings. We only meet when some one has some
> good idea. In this way, the one who calls for a meeting will get the
> max satisfaction. I can think that if regular meeting is set up, then
> it will turn out to be more expensive if we skip any.
Remember what I have said in a previous meeting?
We can talk about what has happened in each distribution in the past month. :)
Don't worry, we can definitely find some topics to discuss. At least
we can talk about what we have done, what has happened to each of us
in the past month.
:)
Zhang Le
> Hi guys
> Oracle really did some for the community, such as LUG , but it hardly to
> find anycase in mainland. I can try to talk to them the departmant related
> Open Source (UBL) in Oracle China.
> By the way, Frederic Muller, hereinafter Fred is the nice guy and a good
> leader of Beijing LUG, which is most famous LUG in China, I think, he and
> his partner(volunteer) did a lot for Linux. I think he can share his
> wonderful experience and idea with us on how to build a good LUG and how to
> run it and keep it going. He often flight to Guangdong, and maybe you can
> find him and have face to face meeting on your SZLUG meeting or party. He
> can speak and listen Chinese very well.
> Finally,if your comitee, consultant or some important position need
> someone famouse in the Open source field in China (out of SZLUG) I can get
> them for you. Of course, the most important are the Open source guy in
> ShenZhen or Guangdong.
>
> Anything I can help, I will do it.
Thank you, Kevin, for the offer to help.
That'll be much appreciated.