How do we address this problem?  Who does it?

In other words, how do small to medium communities battle Apathy?

In all honesty, I don’t have the answer for this question.  If I did, I’d be preaching it to every community group that would listen.  But it does occur to me that the/re are a few things the folks in charge can do to help.  And some of these are documented by the larger communities too.

1. First thing that comes to mind is to build a proper structure.  A meritocracy where those who do the work can decide what gets done.  As most will note, this is no different from any other Free Software development project.  But we need to state it out loud.  If you do the work in the community, you get to decide how the community functions. As part of this process, community leaders can define a loose structure where others can join up, and help build where they find holes.  It’s a definite organic structure, but one that really works well when encouraged.
2. Have something people want, and give it to them.  For us, it’s the Utah Open Source Conference and the other events the Foundation has been providing, like hackUTOS, Nerds in the Sun, Geek Lunch, etc.   Most of these events are free and for anyone to enjoy, learn and network.  However, I can see the need for even more events and services that UTOS can provide.
3. Remind people regularly that community is here.  Reminders are very important.  It’s like what Coke and Pepsi do, constantly remind you they are out there.  The only real difference is that they are looking to sell you something for money.  UTOS and other communities are really here to help you grow and learn.
4. Constantly invite people to join the community and help.  The community is a process that is always evolving and growing, people are needed to make it evolve and grow the way they see it.  Notice I said the way they see it.  It’s up to the community members to decide where the community goes.
5. Get out of the way.  This is somewhat of a corollary to step 4, but it’s really important to point out.  Once the community machine is going, don’t put process and leadership in the way.  The community can do what it needs to do if we just get out of the way, don’t be an obstacle to progress of the community.

As UTOS, we’ve excelled at some parts of this list, and failed at other parts.  I suspect many of the other communities around have succeeded at some of the parts as well.

Mostly, I wrote this to help me understand what the goals for UTOS will be as we start to expand into a more regional community.  But I think these things can help us all deal with apathy and encourage others to get involved.  I hope to hear from the community on this as my article is definitely a work in progress.  I believe I’ve got a good set of problems and possible solutions, but it’s definitely not me that is going to implement most of them.

Please take a few hours out of the month of June and help us grow and become an exciting, active prosperous community.  You’ll feel better for it, and you’ll definitely make a few friends along the way, grow your skillset, and possibly even encourage someone else to join up and help.

Why don’t more people actually volunteer 2-3 hours per month?

One word, Apathy.  Yes, apathy.

I believe apathy is what kills communities around the globe.  They don’t have to be any specific type of community, but when someone, or enough people stop caring about a particular activity, event or cause, the community will die.  I don’t have any cold, hard facts on this, just my experiences, what I’ve read and my gut telling me it’s so.

If it were up to me, as an individual running a medium sized community conference based around Free and Open Source Software, I’d suggest that everyone come and spend 2-3 hours volunteering at the event.  While I know that’s not realistic, it can combat the apathy of which I speak.  But that’s kind of a problem too.

Where are we heading with this discussion?

For one, there are only so many volunteer positions available at the Utah Open Source Conference, or at a LUG meeting, or any such event.  But there are events that are currently not happening.  Imagine if everyone in the FOSS community in the Mountain West spent those 2-3 hours each month either helping a particular event, or creating their own special event or group.  What would the FOSS community landscape look like?

Each month I run into at least 5 people who want to help out within UTOS.  Each time I tell them the same thing, we have lots of things we need help with, we meet here at this time each month and would love to have you attend.  On rare occasion, we get a new volunteer coming to our meetings.  Sometimes they stay, sometimes they realize it’s too much and other things are a priority, and sometimes, they get so excited, they become one of the Utah Open Source Foundation’s ‘Core Team’.  So far, it’s been working well, but recently, we’ve been experiencing growing pains of our own and a little apathy as well.

Another thing to note, larger communities tend to have already dealt with this problem and have a plethora of answers for dealing with things like Apathy, a lack of knowledge and all of the other standard problems that smaller communities must deal with to thrive.  Most of those answers aren’t documented anywhere, at least not very well documented.

How does a community suffer because of apathy?

I am going to use the Utah Open Source Foundation to give some examples of where we fail.  Currently, I fear that our community suffers from apathy for a few reasons.

1. The economy.  While it’s definitely important for people to have jobs, a paycheck and a promise of more work, I find that this is among the lamest excuse people use for not helping.  If you aren’t participating in the community, you are doing yourself a disservice.  Just think of all of the lost opportunities for employment, education, skill improvement (aka resume material) and networking.
2. Family.  Again, I find that a lot of people in our community use their family as an excuse for not participating.  I’m not saying that families aren’t important.  In fact, I would say that participating in the FOSS community is a perfect example of how to show your family what you do, as well as encourage them to be part of a community and volunteer their time to their passions.  Families do take time, but I can guarantee that everyone can find 2-3 hours per month to volunteer.
3. Time.  While possibly related to the other two issues, time itself can get in the way of volunteering to help the community.  People regularly fear that they can’t dedicate enough time to help, when a community really just wants people to dedicate a few hours a month.  If you are spending a couple hours a month in front of your TV, you could cut that down and spend it helping your community instead.

Watch for part three of this series next week.

Cheers,

Herlo

What started out as a simple idea in my backyard in Springville, Utah has blossomed into something much larger, a community of people who want to participate in the coolest events in the Mountain West.   Many of those events are hosted right here in Utah.

While there are other, larger communities in cities like Boston, New York and Los Angeles, the Mountain West has something that most other communities don’t have, a sense of volunteerism, community and brotherhood.  This even holds true for the most part in the Free and Open Source [FOSS] community.  I’ve really enjoyed being part of the Utah Open Source Foundation and Conference for the past 4 years and look forward to seeing it grow beyond Utah and its humble roots.

There are some really good examples of the FOSS community coming together right here in the Mountain West.  These include Local User Groups like the Salt Lake Linux User Group, Idaho State LUG, MontanaLinux.org, Rexburg Open Source as well as some great community events like AbleConf, PodcampSLC, Geek/Blogger Dinners, hackUTOS, BYU Unix User Group Installfests and many more.

While each of these events are great in their own right, there could be so many more.  But why are there not more amazing, or more complete events?

My real question here is why aren’t there more people helping do more of these events?

If I must use an example from my experience, I find that a lot of people really enjoy attending events and networking with others.  They believe that when they do this, they will have stronger relationships and when (not if) they need to change jobs, those they networked with will likely know of a position available.  While this is generally true, it seems to me that if people actually helped with these events, they’d actually have more contacts and more opportunities when they need to find work fast.

Just think about that premise for a few minutes…

If you spend just 2-3 hours per month, yes I said per month, volunteering your time toward the FOSS community, there will be many more opportunities for you when you need it most.

Read the next segment on ‘Combating Apathy in Communities‘.

Cheers,

Herlo

Node.js – building massively parallel applications with javascript and epoll

Node.js [http://nodejs.org/] is a framework for rapidly building massively parallel network applications using non-blocking io. It’s built on the performant v8 javascript engine [http://code.google.com/p/v8/] which compiles javascript to machine code at runtime. Node is similar in design to systems like Ruby’s EventMachine [http://rubyforge.org/projects/eventmachine/] or python’s twisted [http://twistedmatrix.com/trac/]. It’s suitable for building chat-like protocols, comet servers, mmo game servers, etc. This session will cover some of the basics of how to build and install node.js as well as analyze some demo programs.

If time permits, I might talk a little bit about python’s twisted and compare some programs written using twisted/node.js

About Shane Hansen:

I’m a Software Engineer working on Backcountry.com’s replatforming teams. Prior to that I worked on projects ranging from compliance tracking software for the goverment to building  mathematical models for reflectometry to immune system modeling. I’m interested in open source software, web standards, high performance computing and application architecture

Meeting Location:

BetaLoft (http://betaloftslc.com) is located at 357 W 200 S. Upstairs in Suite 201. Salt Lake City, UT, 84101

Betaloft is a coworking space in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City founded by Drew Tyler.

We are a community of freelancers, independents and work-from-home people, who have an interest in getting out of our dull work day and participating in a community that’s designed to support and encourage people who make a living doing what they love.

We provide communication tools, events (social and educational), as well as a physical space to work and collaborate.

See you all there!

Clint

Vim 101 and Beyond

Vim is the editor of choice for many developers and power users. It’s a “modal” text editor based on the vi editor written by Bill Joy in the 1970s for a version of UNIX. It inherits the key bindings of vi, but also adds a great deal of functionality and extensibility that are missing from the original vi. This session will cover the beginnings (101) and the first set of intermediate (201) modes and commands for vim.

If you would like to join us, just head on down via train, car (parking is free on the street for two hours just east and west of BetaLoftSLC), walk or bike to:

WHEN

Wednesday, February 10, 2010
11:30am-1:00pm

WHERE

Come learn some tips and tricks about Vim.  We hope to see you all there.

Cheers,

Clint

As usual, come from 11:30am-1pm at BetaLoftSLC (357 W 200 S #201)  - http://betaloftslc.com

This month, I thought I would share a basic git introduction.  In my opinion, the best Source Control Management (SCM) system out right now.  I’ve been using it for nigh on a year and I have converted a few systems over to it from svn.  This is more of a work session than a presentation, so come on down and learn how to use git.  It is recommended that you bring your laptops with you as that will benefit more if you do.

Some suggested topics I can cover:

• Local and remote git repositories (different workflows and other fun stuff)
• Using git-svn to ‘convert’ from svn
• Comparing Distributed Revision Control with Traditional (non-distributed) Revision Control
• Git hooks, why they are valuable and when to use them
• Other basic git discussions

See you all there.

Cheers,

Herlo

RSSCloud is an open protocol which creates a loosely-coupled Twitter-like network of people and 140 character status messages.  In plainer language, it enables real-time status updates on anything that can be pushed via RSS.  Why should you care?  Come to the SLLUG daytime SIG meeting to find out.

More information can be found at http://rsscloud.org/

So why not come down to BetaLoft next Wednesday, November 11, from 11:30am-1pm and learn about RSSCloud.

Cheers,

Herlo

We have a great presentation lined up for you all!  Here’s the details:

Infrastructure Renaissance

Open source is at the forefront of an evolving ecosystem of tools and processes for building more adaptable and maintainable computational infrastructure. Virtualization and network booting tools speed up and simplify the process of provisioning. Configuration management tools provide policy based service descriptions which collapse the complexity of scaling. Monitoring solutions provide feedback which potentially drive provisioning and configuration. For organizations to fully leverage these tools is often as much a social engineering problem as a technical one. This talk is about building computational infrastructure with the tools, and processes that can help maximize the benefits.

About Andrew

Andrew Shafer is a Co-founder of Reductive Labs Inc., helping organizations build more flexible and scalable systems through better tools and processes with the Open Source system management framework, Puppet™. He brings with him a background in computational science, embedded Linux development, web frameworks and Agile methods.  Currently, Andrew is devoted to AR⊗TA (arxta.net, watch the video). Andrew has been an Open Source user and advocate since the late 90s. His two sons think he is pretty cool.

See you all this Wednesday.

Cheers,

Herlo

This month’s SLLUG Daytime SIG meeting is this coming Wednesday, July 8, from 11:30am-1pm at BetaLoft.  I apologize for being slow getting this out, we’ve been working through a big datacenter move this past week at work.  Now that is over, it’s time for SLLUG Daytime at BetaLoft, (357 W 200 S Suite 201 Salt Lake City, UT, 84101).  Here’s a map if you need directions.

I’d like to let you all know that I (Herlo) will be presenting this month, and the topic is: Cobbler, the powerful, installation, dhcp, dns and repo server!

If you have ever wanted to setup a system with pxe, dhcp, customized repositories and more, then cobbler is for you.  Feel free to read up on the cobbler website before the meeting.

I should mention that cobbler supports several distributions of Linux, and will soon support Windows remote installation (using Linux RIS).  Albeit, I’ll focus on setup of cobbler, a simple installation server with just one distro, using kvm and koan (kickstart over a network) with some basic networking and showing the gui tools as well.

Bring your lunch and your brains and learn all about setting up your very own install server in under an hour.

See you all on Wednesday!

Cheers,

Herlo

I apologize for the last minute notice.  I’m hoping to have the Basics of Puppet presentation next month.

Cheers,

Herlo