COMMUNITY Community Notes

Community Notes SOCIAL NETWORKING

some appreciation for the folks behind encourage more women to get involved the Gnome Meeting project, which in computing, but there’s still a long way turned 5 years old recently. Thanks to left to go. Gnome Meeting (now Ekiga) and the For more information about the WSOP other video conferencing tools that have program and a description of ongoing ef- followed, it’s becoming easier and easier forts to attract more women to Gnome, for Linux geeks around the world to as well as a list of recent WSOP winners, communicate, no matter what the dis- visit http:// www. gnome. org/ projects/ Jon Masters is a UK-based tance. wsop/. embedded Linux developer, Many of the major conferences are now streamed over the Internet and a United Kingdom writer, and consultant. He has growing number of local LUGs are get- Most of the traffic on the major UK LUGs ting in on the act – the most famous ex- was pretty uneventful over the past been actively involved with the ample perhaps being LUG Radio http:// month. In the absence of a major distri- Linux community since starting www. lugradio. org/. bution release or other earth shattering event – and I don’t think Microsoft his first degree at age 13. Jon is Women’s Summer Outreach agreeing to support the OpenDocument Program Format quite gets filed under “earth currently a member of more I’m not one to plug my friends at every shattering” – and with the unexpected than 50 Linux User Groups opportunity, but I would like to make a heatwave we’ve been enjoying, who special mention of the fine work that could blame them? Still, one person who around the world. Chris Ball, Hanna Wallach, and Vincent was bothered this month came from the Untz of the Gnome Project have done in Yorkshire Linux User Group. The poster helping to make the Gnome Women’s mailed to say that they’d just been to Summer Outreach Program a reality. The their copy shop and noticed the amaz- uly is upon us! It’s amazing re- WSOP program builds upon the Gnome ingly complex rigmarole necessary for ally how fast time flies when project’s involvement in Google’s Sum- the folks in the store to open and virus Jyou’re having fun (or suffering mer of Code but specifically targets scan a USB pen drive. from one too many book deadlines!). women only. Those of us in the Linux Aside from a little carefully placed This month marks the beginning of the community are painfully aware of the Linux advocacy, the poster raised the annual conference circuit, kicking off imbalance in numbers between men and larger issue of the lack of a central re- with the UKUUG summer conference in women, so it’s great to see projects such source targeted at local businesses to Brighton, UK and numerous other events as the WSOP program trying to draw in- around the world that will happen be- terest. Signal to Noise tween now and September (check out WSOP is not, of course, the first pro- This month was pretty quiet in terms of the side bar for some links). gram aimed at bringing more women highly controversial topics of interna- For those of us in the Northern Hemi- into Linux development communities. tional Linux community concern. Conse- sphere experiencing summer, it’ll soon The Debian project in particular (thanks quently, many of the groups around the be time for local group summer parties, in part to the hard work of Hanna Wal- world confined themselves to more BBQs, and other gatherings. Most major lach) has been trying to encourage more mundane topics: locating disks, dealing Linux user groups around the world female Debian Developers (DDs) over with updates, routing – the usual sus- have a summer gathering of some kind, the past few years. Unfortunately, it’s pects. I regularly track more than 50 so be sure to check your local LUG list, still possible to count the number of Linux user groups around the world on and turn up if you can. female DDs on one (or maybe two by a monthly basis, but if you’d like to see your local group featured, send me an If you can’t turn up to the next big now) hands. The Debian project is cer- email and I’ll see if I can help. event in person, don’t forget to show tainly a community that would like to

90 ISSUE 70 SEPTEMBER 2006 WWW.LINUX - MAGAZINE.COM Community Notes COMMUNITY

advocate and educate about Linux and FLOSS (Free, Libre, and Open Source Software). There are already groups such as OpenAdvantage advocating for Open Source, but they only operate in a spe- cific part of the Midlands region. They do a good job, using European funding, but they don’t cover other regions, so it would seem that there’s a track record for running such an enterprise if a suffi- ciently large group of enthusiastic volun- teers can be found. United States Like many of the younger Linux enthusi- asts, students at Oregon State University (OSU) were busily taking finals and or- ganizing last minute meetings to get a few hours away from study. As of this writing, the folks at Oregon State and Figure 1: Meetup lets you search for Linux groups by country or postal code. their counterparts in Eugene and Port- land are preparing for the forthcoming ence featured such silliness as BSD dev- Meanwhile, on the Boulder (Colorado, 2006 OSCON conference in Portland, ils riding around on Segway’s and ex- USA) LUG, Dan Ferris posted a favorable Oregon. ploding balloons with lasers, alongside a review of the Acer Travelmate 4674. This OSCON is one of the major O’Reilly serious conference program and numer- powerhouse of a laptop comes with a conferences held each year, and it is cer- ous simultaneous local community 2GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 2GB of tainly a blast. Last year’s OSCON confer- events. RAM, 80GB hard drive, and the usual

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WWW.LINUX - MAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 70 SEPTEMBER 2006 91 COMMUNITY Community Notes

array of graphics and connectivity ties with some ex- options. ternal involvement Most impressive of all, though, was from the local geo- the claim that Linux (in this case, ap- graphic area. But parently a version of Fedora Core) as the Linux install supported all of the hardware out of base has become the box. According to Dan, this is the larger and begun “first laptop I ever got all the hardware to include many working on (wireless still not perfect more converts, though).” I have to admit that I am in- these people have creasingly impressed by stories like this reached out to find one. Even my own Powerbooks aren’t other Linux users badly supported. through MySpace, Meetup.com, and The Iraqi Linux User Group other sites that the Perhaps one of the most interesting existing LUG com- Linux user groups I’ve encountered in munity has largely recent times was the Iraqi Linux User ignored. Group http:// www. iraqilinux. org/. This If you visit LUG was formed by an enthusiastic Meetup.com today, group of people both inside Iraq and in you’ll probably the international community. One of the find a group of goals of the Iraqi Linux user group is to Linux enthusiasts Figure 2: MySpace is popular with some Linux followers who may “educate Iraqis and Iraqi business on the from your local not be watching the local LUG lists. principals and benefits of Open Source.” area who are to- The group’s English-based website tally uninvolved or unconnected with a have heard of MySpace http:// www. (there’s an explanation for the choice of lot of the existing community but are myspace. com and the success it’s having English on the site) hosts several discus- still getting a lot of value out of their in spurring all kinds of debate. sion boards where recent debate has own interaction. MySpace is free to join and free for covered current topics such as Linux cer- In the following sections, I’ll look at the host also. Revenue comes from the tification, wearable Linux, and moving two different types of social networking ads on the site. Some schools and em- house. – Meetup and Myspace – but there are ployers have banned their employees literally dozens more social networking from getting involved with MySpace Social Networking with sites out there with fresh Linux enthusi- simply because of the pervasive nature Linux asts. of the site, and the fact that anything This month, I want to draw your atten- you might list about yourself in a tion to the rapidly growing numbers of Meetup.com MySpace will suddenly be visible to Linux communities that have sprung up Meetup http:// www. meetup. com is what the world. But that’s a general point to through the range of social networking it sounds like. It’s a commercially run remember about anything you post sites now available online. We’ve read website that aims to make running meet- anywhere on the the Internet. (Don’t and heard a lot about social networking ings for local interest groups as easy as publish something you don’t want sites over the past few years as the phe- possible. other people around the world to see!) nomenon has pervaded many different Meetup is free to join, and there is a MySpace hosts a growing number strata of society and well and truly en- fee for hosting a group. You’ll find the of Linux-focused groups with over 50 tered the mainstream. full range of activities – everything members, drawn from all over the world. You don’t have to be a geek to appreci- from needlework to foreign languages – The Myspace website is popular with a ate the value of meeting people and but also a large selection of Linux en- younger crowd, and that certainly shows forming somewhat arbitrary online com- thusiasts. These aren’t just general en- in some of the discussion topics, but in munities through sites such as the ever thusiasts either. Often, groups form many ways, these groups can be more popular (and occasionally controversial) around a specific distribution or even interesting than your conventional LUG myspace. com. But many members of the the use of Linux in a particular field, simply because the barrier to entry is Linux community do use these sites to such as finance and commerce. There very low. form a new generation of LUG. are also groups discussing particular You don’t need to set up a website and Just a few years ago, most Linux user issues, from copyright and patent legis- run your own mailing list when you can groups were formed by die-hard fans lation to general advocation. do it with the click of a mouse. A de- with resources to host their own web- lightful side effect of this is that there is sites, meetings, and so forth. Often, MySpace.com often less of a clique feeling about these LUGs sprang up out of academic institu- Unless you’ve been living under a rock groups than some of the conventional tions and were run by student communi- for the past year or so, you will likely LUGs. ■

92 ISSUE 70 SEPTEMBER 2006 WWW.LINUX - MAGAZINE.COM