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He's dead, Jim!
I posted a similar version of this letter to the IGLU mailing list
earlier this week, and have yet to see any reaction (Other than kudos
from Chen :-) I decided that this entire list should have a chance to
respond too.
When I started pushing activities in IGLU in November of last year, I
was hoping to create a snowball that will shape itself into an active
community. I didn't want to be chief of staff or president of the club
or anything, I hoped that within 4-5 months I could step aside and
see how others share the fun and work of organizing the community. I
managed to get a few more people enthusiastic, got us sponsors for
events, even got a few people enthusiastic enough to initiate their own
meetings and activities, but still I had a feeling people see me as the
"authority" in this non-existant organization, and I hate that. Chen had
the idea of printing Tshirts with "STOP ME, before I volunteer again!"
the big semi-joke question in the global linux community is "what would
happen if Linus ever got hit by a bus?", well as Chen put it this week,
she and me got hit by a bus and indeed the site is wasting away, to the
point we lost a lot of "regular customers" (the stats show 1/4 of the
visitors compared to last month)
Posting to the site is free and open to anyone who wants, so no one can
put blame anywhere but on himself for not joining the efforts. I heard
people complained the site is "deserted" instead of posting new
matterial themselves. that's rediculous. there's a link "post
article" at the bottom of the main page:
http://iglu.org.il/IGLU/addPostingForm
USE IT if you have something good, not before you read the guidelines:
http://iglu.org.il/faq/cache/66.html
and it will be moderated in. if it's urgent, you can drop a message to
webmaster @ iglu.org.il to inform the web team you posted instead of
waiting for them to randomly discover it.
bottom line is that I feel I failed in pulling enough enthusiasm unless
I continue to push alone and I'm not prepared to do that. Not in the
name of IGLU at least, because this is not a 3-4 person LUG, and
sometimes I feel it's barely a one man LUG.
So I'm pulling out, giving up, throwing in the towel, moving aside,
stepping down (add more verb+direction combos of your liking here)
there are a few hanging projects now, if anyone cares to take over them
they are welcome. some of these are not my initiatives ofcourse, but
they seem to be dormant, waiting for someone to pick up the glove.
- the IGLU server move to Actcom - talking to Amir Plivatsky, Compaq,
Eldor, installing, securing, copying over and setting up. Alex Landsberg
has a machine ready, he's at <Alex.Landsberg @ Compaq.com> 050-446-000.
for lack of a coordinator it seems he will be in contact with Actcom
directly and Compaq will install the server themselves, probably with a
basic Mandrake setup, but then there's still moving and configuring to
be done.
- the IGLU site: contributing news and articles. need I say more?
- sivan.com (Noa Forgotherlastname): arranging info exchange (if the
above two are to happen) and synching headlines.
- Pierson Education (Eyal Melchet) - group discounts on books,
cooperations in planning courses.
- Dinner with maddog, mid september, Nahum offered his flat in Rehovot.
- maddog's dream of a USELinux in Israel
- cooperation with Reshet Amal, Educom, Sivan education and all sorts of
others with whom projects never took off.
- writing guides in Hebrew and on Hebrew in linux, translating Linux
Gazette articles and LDP documents, etc.
What we have here is great PR with noone to fill the void. it looks BAD
on the outside, so I'm quitting, mainly because I can't promiss anything
to anyone anymore, I don't feel like the IGLU brand we worked hard to
build these last few months has backup, and at least with Sivan our
reputation was lost.
Our goals were to raise awareness in the Israeli market to Linux and
advocate development of Hebrew Apps, and it seems we are almost half the
way there but riding on hot air alone, and now we lost that too. I can
only assume that the subject is not important enough to anyone but a few
and me, and 10 people does not a LUG make. If Linux' success in Israel
is important to you, do something, but I've given up on finding
volunteers. I can organize sponsors for booths, ties with commercial
companies, free co-hosting of the server at actcom (worth at least
$6000 a year I think?), and free hardware from Compaq (with a large RAID
and all, probably not cheap), but the FOLLOW UP must also be there. if
no one helps to use all this, it makes the group look bad, and it makes
me look bad. I can't help the group's reputation any more, now I need to
protect mine.
So goodbye! I'm not going to run or initiate anything anymore. Please
don't ask me any more questions other than passing info about the above
to be handled by others. Any mail I'll get to ira @ linux.org.il that is
LUG-activity related I'll forward to the IGLU list.
--
Ira Abramov, GNU/Linux advocate.
(@-
//\ "Akamai, Google, MicroSoft, Sun, Oracle, Intel, NASA, Sony,
v_/_ Python, JPG, PNG - CS masturbation is changing the world."
-- C.S. answering to Linus, 3/7/2000
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