[SoCoSA/discuss] [SoCoSA/notify] Meeting: SoCoSA's future: tonight

Wed Dec 3 11:23:24 PST 2008

Eric,

Chris already said the main point: we're mostly Linux/Mac folks, so
coming up with Windows speakers/topics is more difficult.  I do a
teensy bit here and there with Windows, but there's no way you'd want
to hear me talk about any kind of windows topic.  We were trying to
get Windows topics and trying to steer the Unix/Linux topics towards
things that would be of some interest to Windows admins as well...

I think part of the Linux bias was more of an open-source bias,
partially influenced by the fact that we never got attendance very
high.  It's easier to identify communities around open source projects
and find somebody local that can talk about a particular topic.  When
trying to approach a company, you're talking about somebody driving up
from the south bay (most likely), and it's easier to get that sort of
thing to happen when the anticipated attendance is higher.  (yes, this
is a vicious or virtuous circle: more/better speakers leads to more
attendance which leads to making it easier to get speakers)

And, hey, it's not like Unix and Windows are the only two things out
there, but we'd be even more lost trying to help out mainframe admins.
 :)

I think there's actually second, less obvious bias towards topics of
interest to larger sites and internet-heavy sites...

I just did a quick review of the 22 presentations SoCoSA did (
http://socosa.org/taxonomy/term/4 ) and while I think there's plenty
of room for argument, I see about a third of our topics as being
something that should be interesting to windows admins (either
exclusively or equally with linux admins).

And I felt that the majority of our topics should have (in theory)
have been of *some* interest to Windows admins...  A lot of it was
open source projects that run on multiple platforms, a couple were
linux-based solutions that can help windows sysadmins out, etc...  And
maybe one too many topics for software that are basically "insert this
CD into a PC to turn it into a highly functional appliance that
happens to run Linux somewhere under the hood".

Here's the breakdown I did:

Windows: 2
  logmein (barely supports anything other than windows)
  WAFS (remote windows filesharing; but mostly interesting to
geographically distributed organizations)

Arguably agnostic, but probably windows: 1
  Patch Management (I recall the solution being presented seeming
quite Windows-biased to me)

Agnostic: 5 (but mostly biased towards larger sites, I think)
  Data Recovery
  Recycling/Reuse
  Privacy
  Storage Security
  Disaster Recovery

Arguably agnostic, but probably Linux/unix: 7
  Drupal (typically run in a LAMP stack, but works on windows, too;
presenter was actually using windows for his sites)
  Untangle (appliance, sorta)
  MySQL replication
  Cobia Security (appliance, sorta)
  Ruby on Rails (usually done on Linux or OSX, but pretty sure this
works on Windows, too)
  MySQL backup
  smoothwall (another sort of appliance thing...)

Linux/Unix, but theoretically some use to Windows admins: 5
  System Recovery with Knoppix (included Windows stuff, even if it is
a Linux distro)
  Fighting Spam (spamassassin; mostly unix software)
  Nagios (I don't think this runs on windows, but can be used to
monitor windows systems)
  cricket (lot like nagios...)
  PowerDNS (windows theoretically possible, but sounds funky/unusual.
and mostly useful for ISP-ish sites)

Clearly Linux/Unix and of no interest to a Windows admin: 2
  Puppet (only works on unix systems)
  Xen (windows VMs on this are maybe theoretically possible, but let's
be realistic, it's a *nix kind of thing still)

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 5:25 PM, Eric Landerville <eric at landerville.com> wrote:
> I will be unable to come to the meeting tonight (little to short term)
> but I would like to keep SOCOSA going.
>
> As to the talks, what happened to the guy who volunteered to give the
> Asterisk talk(s)?
>
> Lastly there is something that has been on my mind for a while now that
> I wanted to bring up at a meeting at some point.  The group, while
> called systems admins is very Linux centric.  There are a lot of windows
> admins out there and most just aren't interested in Linux if they are
> they go to NBLUG and hide their Microsoft stuff.  I deal with it every
> day, of the 8 members of my team I'm the only one who does anything
> Linux.  I honestly think that if we want to get a wider more diverse
> group the talks should be wider and more diverse.  Just my $.02.
>
> Eric (not Eisenhart)
>
> SoCoSA notifications and reminders, primarily of events wrote:
>> Hey everybody,
>>
>> Meeting: tonight, 6pm-8:30pm.
>> Topic: SoCoSA's future
>>
>> Do you want SoCoSA to continue?  interested in helping out?  show up...
>>
>> If you can't make it tonight but are interested in keeping the group going,
>> please speak up on the discuss list...
>>
>> ----- Forwarded message from Eric Eisenhart <freiheit at socosa.org> -----
>>
>> Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 15:26:55 -0700
>> From: Eric Eisenhart <freiheit at socosa.org>
>> To: steering at socosa.org
>> Subject: [SoCoSA/steering] Plan to try to get group going again
>>
>> Plan to get group going again:
>>
>> 1) Send out general plea/announcement to notify and discuss.  Inviting
>>    discussion on the list, etc.
>> 2) Have SoCoSA meeting at O'Reilly on December 2nd (tonight doesn't work for
>>    obvious reasons, and November's meeting would be on Election Day) with a
>>    topic something like "How to keep SoCoSA going"
>>
>> Actual goal: getting somebody else to run the group.  :)  Or at least get
>> somebody else to find speakers...  The current board just doesn't have the
>> energy to find a good speaker every month.
>>
>> One possibility we should consider: folding in as a "special interest" group
>> for NBLUG.  Become a "sysadmin subcommittee" of NBLUG's board responsible
>> for scheduling every 4th meeting, or something like that.  (details would be
>> worked out with the NBLUG board)
>>
>> There was some discussion a couple months ago from somebody interested in
>> talking...  Maybe we can recruit him.  Or at least use that to get talks
>> lined up for the first quarter of 2009.
>>
>> Thoughts, anybody?  I'm hoping to send something to the group at large in
>> the next couple of days...
>>
>
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>

-- 
Eric Eisenhart <*@eric.eisenhart.name>
http://eric.eisenhart.name/
IRC: Freiheit at freenode, AIM: falsch freiheit, ICQ: 48217244