[sf-lug] SF-LUG December 2025 Mtg

[Michael Paoli]

Good points/questions, I'll toss in what (little?) I know.
Other folks may be able to add additional relevant information and/or
corrections.

On Thu, Dec 4, 2025 at 3:36 AM Ron <ron at bclug.ca> wrote:
> The Cafe Enchante could have a map link or embed.
Not sure if in-person meetings at the cafe are happening anymore, or are only
quite to extremely rare - I haven't been there in ages, last I seem to
have heard,
it's rare anyone actually goes there for SF-LUG meetings, though maybe
sometimes happens?
As far as I'm aware, for years now (since COVID), it's been >~=97% on-line.
As far as I'm aware, the venue still exists and is open during (at least most)
SF-LUG meeting times.
> Should it have accents ala "Café Enchanté"?
Might also be a question also regarding how (in)compatible and/or
backwards compatible
might be desired, or if/how relevant ... or not.  And of course what's also
proper for the venue ... presuming the venue is still relevant.
Peeking online, appears to still be alive and well  (or at least surviving),
and, correctly or not, what I see from photos of the business
Café Enchante - so accent mark on the trailing e on Cafe, but otherwise
straight ASCII.  The search results that came up top were just ASCII on the
name ... but then again that's also how I searched, so that may have quite
biased the results.  Search engine may also bias things based on
search location,
locale/language, etc.
> Partimus project still relevant?
Pretty sure it still exists, though haven't heard of activity from it
in quite a while (and
does have its issues, but that's another story).  How relevant to
SF-LUG is another
question, and if it ought be/remain on SF-LUG site (or be redone or
deemphasized?).
And, peeking at their site, I don't easily spot evidence of anything
newer than a bit
over 5 years ago (their most recent blog entry).  That doesn't necessarily mean
nothing is happening there, but ... not a major flurry of activity, anyway.
> Silicon Mechanics still relevant?
Slightly/barely.  Actually, the VM that hosts SF-LUG web site (and DNS
primary) is
at present running on there quite a bit more ... have some hardware
issues with what
would otherwise be the more nominal location of that VM, so, it's on ye olde
Silicon Mechanics hardware mostly for now, as a somewhat safer more reliable
place ... at least 'till I get some other hardware issues dealt with.
But also given how long ago that donation was, and the comparatively diminished
role of that long ago donation now, maybe time to deemphasize it.  And if
Silicon Mechanics is gone or logo changed, maybe time to update that logo,
shrink it, and/or remove the logo.
And peeking wee bit - Silicon Mechanics appears to still be very much around,
though they have a newer different logo (though not radically
different from the older).
> IPv6 cert still valid / relevant?
Meh ... sort'a kind'a barely?  I added that years ago, after adding
IPv6 to the web site.
But these days, IPv6 should generally be taken as a given and should
generally be
supported.  So ... maybe time to either get rid of that - or maybe
just shrink it on down
to like one line with perhaps a link (maybe I'll do that, since I
originally added it).
> Any interest in updating that logo?
IPv6 cert logo?  See above,
SF-LUG logo or whatever one calls it ... does have quite the history
with the LUG,
uhm, but looking like battling Microsoft Windows 95 does give it a rather dated
look/feel, eh?  Yeah, maybe time for something more updated, ... and
more pro-Linux
than anti-Microsoft (though Microsoft's latest upgrade pushes do tend
to breathe new
life into anti-Microsoft ... whether that's at all their intent or not).
> The Policies / Job Postings need changing, as well as review of the
> contact info. What would the updated info be?
Yeah, Jim is mostly out of the loop, so the handling/policy for Job posting
stuff should really be updated ... though perhaps the group ought come up
with some ... well, not consensus ... nor even strict plurality ...
but, say, at least
plurality agreement among those that bother to proffer an opinion or the like
on the matter.  As for contact(s), Bobby still relevant, but Jim generally
unresponsive to the point that should probably get dropped by now, but
not sure if there are other(s) that ought get added that do/would volunteer to
reasonably cover that - or whatever.  Aaron does come to mind as a possibility,
to perhaps at least add.  I'm thinking Rick and myself probably don't
really want/need
more contacts, but I suppose if need be I could be added/listed as a
technical contact.
And, thinking of technical, etc., maybe ought not have explicit
additional mention on the
main page, but peeking at the list, looks like listadmins are Rick,
and I'm presumig
from the email, Al.  And I generally presume Rick prefers to mostly not have to
deal with that, at least if some other(s) do so with reasonable competence.
Details a longer story, but Rick volunteered to "temporarily" host the
mail list,
while Jim got stuff properly sorted out and would then take that back over
himself, rather than Rick hosting it.  And, well, more than two decades later,
still "temporarily" hosted by Rick.
> Is there interest in restyling the site?  Kinda has 1960s orange shag
> carpet, wood panelling, and leaded paint retro feel. Keep that?
Good question, probably depends upon both what the group feels,
and what HTML volunteer talents could actually do and be expected to
reasonably maintain.
And, the existing, uses wee bit 'o PHP.  Long ago Jim expressed interest to
gut that (only updates the next meeting date), and instead just have something
simply cron driven to do that.  (JavaScript could do it too, but not
all browsers/clients
necessarily have JavaScript and have it enabled).  And of course someone quite
volunteered to do that, but never even got close to completing it (or
even starting it).
> Maybe someone can step up and select what they feel comfortable with
> from the list.
Yeah, that'd be good.  Site does also have wiki, so, could potentially
have wiki page of, e.g. to-do and wish-list items for the SF-LUG site.
Might even possibly already have a wiki page that (partly) covers that, if
I dig a bit ... though it's likely relatively out-of-date.
Yeah, ... only a handful of SF-LUG specific wiki pages (does have its own
dedicated namespace, as the wiki is shared among multiple LUGs and some
other resources).  Can have a peek here:
https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?do=index&idx=sf-lug
And maybe I'll update a wee bit, but probably most of those pages are either
out-of-date, or stale/old ... though some may still be of (significant?)
historical interest.  But hey, it's wiki, so one cal also always look at older
versions of pages too - if/when that's rather/quite relevant.

And thinking of SF-LUG web site and main page(s) there, and wiki,
might be appropriate to push stuff that's just (and/or mostly) historical to
a wiki page, and just link to that, rather than having what's really old and not
particularly pertinent to current taking up much space on the main page.
Or could be a separate page on the main site.  Either way.  But wiki page
does also have the advantage that it too has history, so earlier versions are
also easily accessible (and significantly lower skill requirement to
edit wiki page
as compared to HTML).

> I've got my stuff going on but if no one local steps up and the change
> scope is defined, I'd step up.
Cool!  If we don't end up with too many chiefs and not enough Indians,
that could possibly work well.