Re: [tlug] Re: Happy New Year

[Jonathan Byrne <jq@example.com>]

On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 11:33:46AM +0900, Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon wrote:

>Happy New Year from Kokubunji in western Tokyo!

Natsukashii, one of my friends used to live in Kokubunji.

>try to make it to the next nomikai - I missed the last one only because I
>didn't have a job or money....

Gee, that sounds like a pretty good reason to come and drink ;-)

>> Hmm...  It seems I joined this group too late.  Everybody's gone now...

It tends to seem that way.  There was a time when 60 or more people would
come to a tech meeting and a nomikai would see 30.  TLUG went through
some difficult politcal times and many of the long-time core members
evetually through up their hands in disgust and left because of an influx
of the new breed of newbie- the kind that say "I don't want to read the
documentation or figure it out for myself.  I tried Linux, so you *owe*
it to me to hold my hand, wipe my butt, and anything else I may require
as I run Linux - and while those particular troublemakers and their
shortsighted supporters who opposed muzzling them were dealt with and they
lost the battle for control of TLUG, the damage was done.  Those who
left have never returned, and they were our best and brightest.

They could return now in safety, but I don't think any of them ever will.
If they are lurking, none of them has told me about it.

If TLUG could find a corporate sponsor to provide meeting space and all,
it's possible that something like those glory days could return, if
there were TLUGgers willing to put in the large amount of time that
such a thing requires.  Such a sponsor would be difficult to find now,
I think, and it would be even more difficult to find a lot of people
who both could and would put in all those hours of setup for a meeting,
and such. 

It was pretty great stuff, though, and I'm glad I was there to see it.
The "cross-platform Linux meeting" was especially cool.  I think there
were at least half a dozen architectures represented, including an
Amiga (although I think that may have been running NetBSD, not Linux).
Not many people still in TLUG were there back then.  There was me, Jim T.,
Ayako, Albeto I think (Alberto, are you still out there?).  Anybody else
I'm forgetting?  That was in 1998, IIRC, so we've had a really huge
membership turnover since then.

Dang, all this really makes me wish I was back in Japan.  Anybody need
a sysadmin? ;-)

Jonathan


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