[sf-lug] Introduction....

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Samir Faci (samir at esamir.com):

> Inline....

The way civilised people do it.

> Ah, that's unfortunate, but understandable.  I saw some decline in
> Chicago as well, but I think it was mostly due to people's priorities
> shifting rather then economy / boom related.  People graduating,
> moving on and nobody really stepping in to fill there shoes.

Silicon Valley has a long history of boom and bust cycles, as it turns
out.  That's part of the structure of the local economy.  However, the
dot-com bust was an unusually severe and brutal cutback, and it actually
hit Bay Area Linux firms especially hard, because they were concentrated
in the industries most strongly affected by the bubble.  I was working
at VA Linux Systems at the time, and VA faced a series of ironic
challenges:  (1) Their core clientele (dot-com firms) were going
bankrupt and ceasing to buy anything.  (2) As dot-com firms went under,
their prior hardware purchases re-entered the market as used equipment
sales.  Thus, VA was obliged to compete with its own prior production.
This of course was not tenable.  

Other Linux-industry firms likewise had huge cutbacks or closed.  SuSE
trimmed its Oakland office to a skeleton crew of sales staff, and then
(I think) closed that, too.  TurboLinux moved their sales and marketing
office from Brisbane to Palm Springs.  Cobalt Networks was bought by Sun
Microsystems and then almost immediately shut down.  Eazel went
belly-up.  Linuxcare spectacularly cancelled its IPO (for reasons never
explained in public) on the eve of going public, laid off almost everyone, 
renamed itself Levanta as a mainframe proprietary software company
(after a million-to-one reverse stock split) and then went bankrupt, 
Even Red Hat Software, Inc. (now named Red Hat, Inc.) tightened its belt
considerably.  And so on.  The Bay Area Linux community shrank fo the
simple reason that large numbers of members either moved out of the area
or changed professions, or both.  

It was much worse here than elsewhere, frankly.  Things have never
entirely recovered.

The geography of the Bay Area also plays a role, with San Francisco Bay 
right in the middle as a barrier to integration and cooperation.  

> Well, I'm not sure I agree with that statement.. but I don't think
> LUGs/Linux need to focus solely on the OS.

I merely said it was a perception.  I certainly didn't say anything
about holding that view.

FWIW, the guy I shave is maintainer of the User Group HOWTO for the
Linux Documentation Project.

-- 
Cheers,             A: Yes.
Rick Moen           > Q: Are you sure?
rick at linuxmafia     >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
.com McQ! (4x80)    >>> Q: Why is top posting frowned upon?