Free Software Users Groups - part 1

From the beginning, users groups have contributed significantly to free software. As time went by, they were not only Linux groups, but they also cope with other projects or they turned into other groups joined around SL philosophy.

During the panel User Gropus: their role and their actions, held in the Ninth edition of the International Forum of Free Software (FISL 9.0), Porto Alegre, Brazil, they compared and shared experiences according their realities.

Roberto Allende, Leo Monk, Alejandro Cura,
Enrique Verdes and Luciano Ramalho

UyLug

http://www.linux.net.uy
UyLug began as informal gatherings held by participants of fidonet’s node 9, whose goal was share knowledge. This group was officially founded when the organizational meeting joined, in November, 1997. The first President, Lecturer Héber Godoy, guided them with the purpose of:

This third point was the reason why UyLug was constituted as a civil association from its very beginning. Nowadays, it has more than two hundred associates.

CafeLug

http://www.cafelug.org.ar
CafeLug is a users group of GNU/Linux and Free Software from Capital Federal, Argentina. Conversely to UyLug, CafeLug is an informal group that was formed in August, 1999. Nowadays, CafeLug has around fifteen active users and fifty active-peripheral user members.

Python Brazil Association

http://associacao.pythonbrasil.org/
The Civil Association was founded in July, 2007. Python Brazil began with two discussion lists, Python Brasil y ZopePT. Both groups have a great amount of users: Python Brazil is up to two thousand members and ZopePt is up to nine hundred. These lists were created the same year than FISL, which served as a foundation and a meeting place for members. The association has seventy members, although they have not done membership campaigns due to some bureaucratic difficulties.
Firstly, the initiative was the formation of a foundation Python Brazil. However, the scheme of a foundation is more specific and the constitution is more complex than a Civil Association. For that reason, the members decided to constitute a Civil Association and the idea of a foundation is a long term goal.

PyAr, Python Argentina

http://python.com.ar 
PyAr joins Python’s users and developers. This group began four years ago and it does not have formal structures. Nowadays, it has thirty active members and four hundred subscribers in a mail list. PyAr turn to foundations as Vía Libre to carry out acts which require legal standing, such as events organization or financing of activities.

Plone Southern Cone - Plone Cono Sur

http://plone.org/countries/conosur
During 2005, the current founding members attended to most of Free Software events in order to spread Plone. Plone Southern Cone was founded after a year of establishing contacts in different parts of the region. At the moment it joins more than a hundred users from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay y Uruguay. Only five people promote Plone Southern Cone.

¿What is a Users Group?

According to the Linux User Group HowTo:

A Linux users group is usually an association local, 
provincial, regional or national, a non profit group, 
that attempt spread the use of Linux and free software 
and its culture in their environment, as well as being 
a support point for their users.

According to Enrique Verdes, “friendship and socialization is a basic component within a LUG – “UyLug was born as a group of friends” -affirm Enrique – “thank to the primitive internet that Fidonet was, many people met and began to join monthly, setting up bons of friendship. In a users group a key feature that people meet each other and they feel comfortable. The UyLug core is the same group of friends that began sharing our knowledge. I started using Linux from the beginning of our group because my friends gave me the first distribution I installed.

As Leo Monk stated “the goal of CafeLug is spread, promote and use free technologies, the group is composed by people more committed, who are also friends, thus, consensus is essential. We reach an agreement for spread of free technologies. In other subjects we have divergences, but we work only in the common points” Leo comments “Plone Southern Cone and PyAr have not started as a group of friends but they have become friends because of the activities they share.
The situation of Python Brazil Association is different from UyLug y CafeLug because its initial technology was not Linux, but Python. In addition, the members from this community were located in different places. In 2000 several enthusiasts of this technology began to build sites that went beyond their geographic zones. After meetings at national level, they decided to create an Association in order to stimulate technology by these sites and to create new users group in different regions of the country. As a result, many users groups were created, i.e. one from Sao Paulo, which joins users from that state who gather monthly to give talks and share some drinks. At the moment, the goal of this association is supporting the work of users group.

Activities

According to the GrULiC’s pag, LUGs activities are:

• Promotion
• Education
• Support
• Socialization

UyLug’s members gather monthly, participate in events as FliSol, the free software’s day, when an exhibition (demoday) is carried out. Remarkably, the most important event of this group is the end of years’ barbecue.
The activities of CafeLug, consistenly with its goals, are centered in spreading information and socialization. The main of them is CafeConf, an annual conference in which talks about free sotware are given with a great audience. Moreover, CafeLug organize quarterly talks with a more technical approach. As UyLug, their members gather monthly.
The most important activity of Python Brazil is the organization of PyCon Brazil, an annual event that gathers Python users and developers from all over the country. Besides, it maintains and supports python.com.br and tchezope.org, sites that have contents very important for the community. Thus, the association has taken on an important responsibility, which ensures the existence of maintainers and contents’ administrators who has assigned roles during a year. Related to spreading information, Python Brazil’s main activity is to support events to make possible attendance of most of its members.
PyAr attends to events and gives talks to spread technology. Support work is made via mail list and sprints to spread and produce code. An example of this is CDPedia, a reduced version of Wikipedia whose goal is to show Wikipedia contents from a cdrom. Pyweek is an event en which PyAr members participate actively and it is a contest to do a weekly game.
Plone Southern Cone does educational activities by giving free courses of Plone in Free Software events. Give talks for spread information has obtained good results. Support is made by mail lists and translation of documents to Spanish.

Formal or Informal Organizations?

At the beginning UyLug was worried about interaction with formal organizations, such as student centres and universities. In addition to this, a vision of its founders, that considered this society as conservative, they believed that the best option was to constitute the group as Civil Association.
“From my point of view” Leo Monks comments “I believe that political matters should be kept out and the group should be a kind of spotless guarantor built on an informal frame. The most members it has, the better it is.

to be continued...

Translation by: Ivana Yankilevich