On Tue, 7 Oct 2008, Jeremy wrote:
> There is a difference between 'no leadership', and decentralized
> control. If there were no leadership, none of those things would get
> done. In some ways, it reflects the FOSS community, where everyone
> pitches in to help.
>
> This is also why a name change is difficult. For instance, when we
> update the website, will we do more than change the logo and text, such
> as modernize it? We've heard proposals about rewriting the website in
> drupal, or rails, and all sorts of fancy stuff, but who will support it?
> And I mean support it for many years. RIght now it is stable and well
> supported.
>
> From an operational point of view, If we change the name the risk of
> disrupting the balance that supports tclug. Yes, the switch sounds easy
> on paper, like most projects, but I've thought it through, and it would
> not be trivial. And that assumes we can reach consensus one way or
> another.
Thanks for this info, Jeremy.
Here's what I think:
First, modernizing the web site is a separate issue that can be dealt with
anytime or never.
Second, I think we can continue to use the abbreviation TCLUG even if we
choose to call the organization "Twin Cities GNU/Linux User Group." I was
the one who wrote about TCGLUG, not Stallman; he only said that he would
meet with us if we changed the name to GNU/Linux User Group instead of
Linux User Group -- he didn't say anything about the abbreviation. I
think the abbreviation is a secondary issue and the more important idea is
to add "GNU" to the official name of the group.
Third, I think a change to "Twin Cities GNU/Linux User Group (TCLUG)" will
not be that hard to do if we retain TCLUG abbreviation. Someone
volunteered to update graphics for the web pages. For web page text,
something like this will probably work for you if run in appropriate
directories:
perl -pi.bak -e ''BEGIN{undef $/} ; s#(Linux\s+User)#GNU/$1#g' *.ht{m,ml}
After that we'd probably want to add a few words about GNU and the
goodness of Free Software.
Assuming the leadership will allow it, how hard is it to arrange a vote by
members on the name change?
Mike