[dvlug] Wondering if these meetings still happen

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Don Smith (dcsmith at gmail.com):

> Michael, I'm sorry about the mailinglist conflict with Grant, I always had
> a more positive experience with him.
> 
> Thanks to everybody who responded and hopefully we can meet up soon.

(You probably meant Rick, not Michael.  Michael Paoli, who is
instrumental in keeping SF and East Bay LUGs alive and healthy, 
is also a participant on this mailing list, and a resource you should
heed.)

To be clear, I like Grant Bowman well enough generally, mostly.  I just
think he keeps wanting to make unfortuante technology decisions that
have bad consequences.  He tends to make unilateral decisions and block
everyone else from participating.  See, for example, the fact that (as
far as I know) nobody got told the Mailgun so-called "mailing list" got
(reportedly) shut down, nboody but Grant (as far as I know) can update
the DVLUG Web site, and nobody else can administer DVLUG's domain or DNS.

LUGs learned thirty years ago:  You always need to have multiple trusted
volunteers able to edit the Web site and administer the Internet domain.
But hey, Grant decided to ignore those hard-earned lessons, along with 
"Don't needlessly outsource essential LUG functions to a vendor who must
be paid every month, especially if you can get those functions from
friendly members of the Linux community for free."

(Yr. humble servant is, BTW, maintainer of the LUG HOWTO.)

Point is, if this mailing list didn't (still) exist, as far as I know,
DVLUG members would have no way of collaborating on any path forward
other than all showing up for in-person discussion at La Scala.  And,
don't forget, Grant attempted (as far as I know, unilaterally) to tell
me, claiming to speak for DVLUG, that DVLUG wanted me to delete this
mailing list.  Twice.

Also?  Given that Grant went out of the way to make himself (as far as I
can tell) the indispensible party for all matters of the DVLUG Internet
domain _and_ the DVLUG Web site, to me it suggests that Grant...

1.  Doesn't appear to have shared with y'all an effective means to reach 
    him (like a telephone numeber -- but maybe he did, you tell me).
2.  Selected "private WHOIS" so nobody knows whom to contact, and 
3.  Omitted any "maintainer contact" (etc.) information on the Web site.

That's kind-of a pattern.

LinkedIn has a page for him (https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantbow), 
and he might still be reachable via Partimus, of which he's a principal
along with Lyz Joseph.  He also has a Web site, last updated a bit over
a year ago.  https://www.grantbow.com/ His domain registrar is GoDaddy
(the cheapest), and WHOIS for domain grantbow.com is (again) "private
WHOIS", i.e., you cannot look up using /usr/bin/whois (there) how to
contact him.

His most recent Twitter comment was in Nov. 2023.

Ah, his personal page states a telephone number:  (415) 375-2752  

Maybe give him a call, folks.


Did you know that DVLUG has a WordPress blog site?  It's at
https://www.dvlug.org/blog/ .  All the entries are by an unspecified
author, but I recognise the writing style.  It's Grant Bowman only, 
talking about what he wants to talk about -- which is fine, but,
seriously his personal views are synonymous with DVLUG?  

Did you know that DVLUG has a podcat?  It's a link from
https://www.dvlug.org/podcast/ to a site operated by one Ian Lynn,
https://www.sharethebytes.com/ .  Early episodes are marked as being
from "the folks at DVLUG", which is Grant and two friends.  Later
episodes seem to be just Grant's friend Ian Lynn.

Everything on www.dvlug.org appears to revolve around, and be written
and curated by, Grant Bowman, and be all about his personal interests
and projects (such as Partimus).  That's not a complaint; just an
observation.

None of the LUGs I'm involved in are all about me, not even CABAL, which
meets at my and my wife's house in West Menlo Park.