Subject: [linux.org.tr] (fwd)
From: Andreas Mueller (amu@bimel.com.tr)
Date: Wed 21 Jul 1999 - 09:16:01 EET DST
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 17:00:01 +0300 (EEST)
From: Andreas Mueller <amu@bimel.com.tr>
To: justin@slashdot.org, ulakbim@ulakbim.gov.tr, editor@stargazete.com,
tom.schwaller@linux-magazin.de, schulte@guug.de, jd@ix.heise.de,
debian@tuerkiye.net, linuxnews@linux.org.tr, burak@linux.org.tr,
gorkem@linux.org.tr, linux@bilkent.edu.tr, chris@linux.de, joey@debian.org,
tilman_baumgaertel@csi.com, mertalta@tuerk.net, linux@gelecek.com.tr,
torvalds@transmeta.com, georg@atnet.at, norbert.kuemin@gmx.net,
metucc@metu.edu.tr, gnu@gnu.org, truug@truug.org.tr, treacy@debian.org
Subject: [linux.org.tr]
Hi All
For Justin "Please add to slashdot"
Open letter to TRLUUG (Turkish Linux User Group)
From: Andreas Mueller <amu@bimel.com.tr>
>>> For the "index" page
Turkish Linux User Group decided to raise a yearly fee for an
email alias due to inability to get sponsors for their other
projects.
>>> For the "more" page
On July 19th a small group from linux.org.tr (Linux-Tuerkiye) decided
to raise an yearly fee for an e-mail alias/membership at linux.org.tr.
They also decided to split the user group into 2 parts. I'm a member
of Linux-Tuerkiye. Below please find two postings from officials from
TRLUUG, both of them are personal friends of mine. There were no
discussion between users and officials before, the fee was simply
dictated.
Here are my thoughts:
a) To hire a partime student. I know that there are many students
who create webpages for free projects for free. (Look at
http://www.debian.org/ for example)
b) In a free group (like the Linux community) all email addresses
have some "worth". It doesn't make sense to create subdomains
within such a linux.<tld> domain. We don't need a new two-level
hierarchy.
c) Maybe comming soon, members.linux.org.tr will also be splitted
into active and passive, stupid and clever.
d) Mr. Gorkem does his job all for free. If he can't do this
anymore, we have to look for somebody else. There are many people
who would like to help.
e) Large membership. Mr. Gorkem said that running linux.org.tr
depends on personal activity of the officials. It is said that
there are 90 members. I'm unable to believe that none of these 90
people would spend some time on it. Why would they want an email
alias? Just for fun?
f) Support for Linux. There are three commercial companies at
Tuerkiye, that provide professional support for Linux. One of
them, I support with FREE bandwith, with a computer hosted in our
network. The other is the company I work for, we also give FREE
support for Linux, including freebies for people who can't afford
purchasing a CD.
A short time ago I started a new project to translate Debian into
Turkish. This includes webpages as well, I searched for peoples who
can help. I found 40 (fourty) people who wanted to work on this this
project FOR FREE. They spend their time thats all. I also invited
the German Linux Community to Tuerkiye last year. 20 people have had
very much fun time. The Sponsors were the airplane company Akdeniz, a
local HighSchool, the German Unix User Group and myself. I even have
paid for hotel and meal for the Turkish people out of my own pocket.
My personal activity for Linux at Tuerkiye is very, very HIGH.
Richard Stallman visited Tuerkiye one month ago. Now linux.org.tr
acts like a commercial company. Is this what we deserve?
I don't believe so. If your new plan to make Linux much more
attractive, please walk around and ask people who would work for
FREE. I'm sure you can find people. You can also find sponsors. For
example, when Richard Stallman visited Turkiye, I asked my boss if we
could provide him a car. He agreed,
It's also serious that there's no protocol about your meeting or other
people don't know about this secret event. At least the situation
very dim about what happend with linux.org.tr and I cannot accept this
situation. Dont forget Linux is an operating system developed by
many, many people and these people invested _their_ free time to
develop it. I'll also say thanks that I'm able to choose to use this
great product for FREE.
Maybe linux.org.tr needs new Ideas, but if you get money from
individuals this is the wrong way. Other people replied to me with a
"big thank" for my posting, but they hesitated to post themselves such
a letter. Please think again about your ideas for linux.org.tr.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The original Letters:
From: burak@linux.org.tr
Mr. Muller, a close friend of mine, wrote the below message WITHOUT any
kind of information regarding the purpose of the planned action. Thus,
his explanations below are totally wrong and misleading.
I'm very sorry about the ongoing debate which has no connections with
the truth. The motives behind the subject action plan is given below for
the intended readers. All others can safely delete this message, thanks
for reading up to here...
Turkish Linux Users Group has some problems for some time. Some of these
problems, as Giray stated, are based on the lack of a proper
organizational schema. This leads to a bunch of problems, some of which
are listed below;
+ no one can act on behalf of the whole group, which in turn results
-most of the time- everyone sitting and no one moving because of lack of
proper approval from ALL group members
+ no one maintains our web and ftp sites for decades; which is both time
consuming and dangerous (anyone can jump over you with even the simplest
of mistakes)
+ conference organizations tend to get worse, because there is no
authority to say "no; you cannot give that seminar because you are not
appropriate for this job" and "hey xyz. could you come and give that
presentation for the name of us?"
These simple ones are items of a longer list, but I guess they are just
enough to mean that we definetely need AUTHORITY. We, as 20 of the group
members, made a meeting last week and decided to form a management
committee which will
a. pull the group toward an election to choose a management committee
with a democratic approach
b. organize the activities of the group until a new management committee
is elected
For this first management committee, all meeting attendees as well as
willing parties on the most important closed list of the group
(linux-y), we formed a management committee with more than 20 members.
(The list has 90+ members)
a. hiring a part-time student to maintain web and ftp sites to make them
more professionally maintained
b. dedicate the @linux.org.tr addresses official; for the sole use of
the management committee members
c. move all @linux.org.tr addresses to @uye.linux.org.tr (uye=member in
turkish)
d. request a small amount of money for (c) and some other facilities
c. move all @linux.org.tr addresses to @uye.linux.org.tr (uye=member in
turkish)
d. request a small amount of money for (c) and some other facilities
listed below to feed the webmaster we are about to hire
e. let consultants create single page of information regarding their
services and publish at our site for a small amount of money which can;
1. let people easily access consultant information on the web
2. earn some money
f. let professional support and integrator companies make something like
in (e) with exactly the same purposes with a more amount of money
g. communicate with local software development organizations to port
their apps to linux
hYIOGLU,
Network & Systems Support Engineer
Hacettepe University Computer Center
06532 Beytepe/ANKARA
Phone: +90 312 2976200
--------------------------------------------------------------------
>From gorkem@linux.org.tr
Hi
It's the best way to treat linux as a free OS, but when it comes to
service and support, it may not be free.
linux.org.tr is lacking money. We need to make a conference, but we can't
find a good sponsor. First of all we have to earn money, as all other
linux organizations do. Since we cannot find a good money source, we have
to spend our resources for money.
I think this is not illegal. Linux is free, but support may not be.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Sincerely,
Andreas Mueller
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Andreas Mueller amu@linux.de
amu@bimel.com.tr http://www.tr.debian.org
Bimel Limited Tel: +90 (312) 434 2245
Bayindir Sokak 5/5 Fax: +90 (312) 431 1953
Yenisehir 06410
Ankara - TURKEY Private: +90(542)611 2976
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