on Phoenix Linux Users Group...

Many may ask... what goes on @ PLUG (Phoenix Linux Users Group)?



PLUG is a semi-formal group of Linux Enthusiasts based in the Phoenix area that has been in existence in various forms for over 10 years. There is no legal US entity associated with PLUG at this time. Some claim that there is a Steering Committee associated with PLUG, however the names of the members of this group have never been released to the public. There are several ways to interact with PLUG:

Mailing Lists. the main list is somewhat high traffic, although the volume does fluctuate quite a bit depending on the mood of various participants. It has all you could hope for in a Linux mailing list: technical questions and technical answers, cranky tech heads, various people sounding off about politics (myself included), bad spelling, distro wars, expositories on Bill Gates and the Anti-Christ, and much much more. What are you waiting for?! subscribe now, enter "MICROSOFT SUX" in the subject line, add a few lines of meaningless data, and hit 'Submit'!

Install Fest: this is a monthly meeting of the minds in the Phoenix area where skilled Linux technicians assist newbies in installing Linux on their PCs and getting various other things to work. You also get a healthy dose of anti-Micro$oft propaganda out of the whole deal.

Developer Meetings: I've been to a few of these and they mainly consist of retirees and other UNIX old-guard types talking about their experiences or their favorite software package. I do enjoy listening to older guys talk about the course of their careers, why? Because after retiring, they say exactly what they want- they've got nothing to gain or lose- so you tend to get a level of candor you would never find in the workforce. Perhaps the retiree-demographic of Phoenix accounts for the character of discourse on the PLUG mailing lists. I wouldn't expect million dollar business information here, but I found the people to be generally friendly, and they do try to keep things on topic. These meetings are divided into East Side and West Side. I've done a short presentation at one of these meetings once, I found the crowd to strike a happy medium between criticism and welcomeness.

Stammtisch: Get out your lederhosen its time to for a regex contest! I'm not really sure why we have German themed drinking night dedicated to Free Software in Phoenix, but I try not to ask too many questions. This meeting is an informal gathering of Linux people in the Phoenix area who enjoy alcoholic beverages.

so to give you the long and short of it... what can you get out of PLUG? I can't say you can expect much in terms of career development, to be completely frank I find a lot of the management structure to be somewhat unprofessional and counter-productive. For instance, they are a technical group and their web site is, shall we say, somewhat lacking. It has been hacked several times. It uses the default Drupal template. Without getting too much into their management problems, I don't see a lack of either energy or talent, but rather the ability to delegate tasks and create incentives- basic management problems. This kind of situation tends to typify technical groups like this, so I don't necessary blame them for their shortcomings. On the positive side: the people are friendly and if you're a geek, you may be able to locate some buddies to play video games with.

some pics of PLUG meetings, mainly by Alan Dayley- whose input and effort I do greatly appreciate. the photo above is by Alan Dayley (see Flickr for CC license).