On Tue, Apr 25, 2006 at 09:17:41AM +0100, Keith Watson wrote:
Haven't read the entire thing but it looks interesting; http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/03/03/1813216
I had a conversation a few weeks ago with someone from another LUG, talking about the fact a large number of us don't really do the monthly social meets, but are much happier to turn up to a kit meet. I think I'm mostly the opposite way round; I'm more likely to turn up to a social meet than a kit meet, as was my companion. What we decided it probably came down to is that both of us are, for want of a better term, "IT professional". ie we work with Linux as part of our day job and don't really want to get involved with what could be seen as more "work" that a kit meet could be seen as (I myself remember spending several hours at a meet trying to get someone's machine up and running and fully happy with Linux, not managing to do so in the time we had available and feeling quite guilty about it at the end). That's not to say I won't turn up to kit meets - I'd be there this weekend if I wasn't back in NI, just that to me I'm happier sitting round having a natter than playing around with kit.
The article above mentions talks; something we don't really seem to achieve due to lack of interest. Or perhaps more due to geography; while there are a number of us in Norwich there are many more who are scattered around and for whom perhaps transport problems are the main limiting factor in turning up to meetings. Perhaps that's the draw of a kit meet; they last longer and therefore the time it takes to get there and back seems more justifiable?
J.