Future of the LUAU Site and List

[Warren Togami]

That previous e-mail was forwarded to several mailing lists, but this one is
specifically for LUAU people.

I have this question, what will become of this mailing list?
While this has not been out in the open, there has been some resistance to
the name "LUAU" due to some previous events in the past that have tarnished
the name.  It is not my place to point any fingers or say anything about the
nature of these events as I was not around back then.  It will suffice to
say that many among the OSS advocates of our local community felt the need
to distance themselves from the name.

At some point I began planning to revive the local OSS community, this time
with a strong emphasis on community education and advocacy toward schools
and non-profit organizations who would benefit the most from OSS.  We on
this list explored different names of this new group, but many have
suggested sticking to the name LUAU.  After this point we waited a few weeks
as I pushed to get approval for meetings on the campus of Mid-Pacific
Institute.

Suddenly, and a complete surprise to me, John Christian announces his ALOHA
group.  After the first meeting and private discussion with John, we decided
that our goals in OSS groups were very different so I decided to go ahead
with my original plans.

Long story short, I named my group MPLUG, and we have started off with such
an unexpected tremendous interest that I have had to turn people down from
seminar sign-ups.  (NOTE: WE NEED YOUR HELP.  We were scheduled for an
"Introduction to Linux" seminar on April 7th at the Atherton YMCA, but I
learned today that I will be unable to teach that seminar.  Could somebody
experienced with Linux and free on that day please e-mail me?)

Now MPLUG and ALOHA have our own sites.
MPLUG
http://www.mplug.org
ALOHA
http://www.linuxhi.com

For MPLUG I have decided to try an online web board instead of mailing list.
Please join the MPLUG Community Discussion Forum.
http://forum.mplug.org.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  My MPLUG web page is ugly.
I'm working on it.

I have 20-30 new users of Linux who may be posting many questions soon, so I
would really appreciate it if some of the more experienced users out there
could register at the board and help out.  I hope to build this into a
robust online community.

---

Now, back to my original question, what happens to this LUAU site and
mailing list?

While the group LUAU may no longer exist, the mailing list still reaches
many people who may have not been active, but have been listening and
learning all these years.  The mailing list will continue to be a useful
resource for spreading announcements to these interested parties.  I propose
that the mailing list remain as-is.  I think most conversation will
transition to the MPLUG Community Forum and ALOHA's Slash web log, so I
believe this old LUAU list will be mainly useful for annoucements.

However, the LUAU site itself must be stripped.  Its content, links from
Hawaii ISP's and existence in search engines may be confusing and misleading
toward people looking for Linux information in Hawaii.  People may be
confused by the page that still says Tuesday meeting dates.  I propose that
the site be stripped down to two elements: 1) Links to MPLUG and ALOHA.  2)
The LUAU Mailing List subscription page.

Are you folks in favor or opposition to this proposal?  Please reply with
your feelings regarding this matter.

Who is maintaing that site?  Could you please e-mail me?

Warren Togami
warren at togami.com