January 2020 - WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

Re: Improving WLUG outreach

by Dennis Payne

The NatickFOSS group uses gettogether.community instead of meetup.com. I don't know that it has gotten us any visibility but the software is open source. I've been tempted to join meetup to go to Boston Indie Game Developer meetings but have so far held off. The NatickFOSS group also gets a booth at the Science on State Street event at Framingham State. It is a free STEM activity fair for kids. My job at the event is to generally occupy the time of the kids so the other members talk to the parents. First year I had a playstation controller hooked up to my laptop and held it out to any kid that walked by. Last year I brought the arcade machine assembled by my son's cub scout den. Any idea if WPI does any thing similar? Even if it is something only for WPI students it might be useful to alert people to the group's existence. -- Dennis Payne dulsi(a)identicalsoftware.com https://social.freegamedev.net/channel/dulsi

Jan. 14, 2020

Re: [EXT] Improving WLUG outreach

by Anderson, Charles R

Ideas are great, but I don't think we have a lack of ideas. We need people to step up and implement ideas. What concrete steps do you propose? Who do you propose should do those steps? On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 10:43:30AM -0500, Joshua Stone via WLUG wrote: > Hey all, > > I thought I'd like to continue the topic about what we could do to increase > attendance meeting. > > I think working with the community at WPI would be a great thing for us, so > long as we try to understand more about the student culture. I've learned > that one of the most important things about WPI is that a sense of > community and working toward a greater goal are included as part of the > curriculum. One of the earliest classes a WPI student takes involves > thinking about the biggest problems impacting the world and makes strides > to tackling such problems head-on. > > https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/wpi-plan/10-things-to-know > > I believe WPI also has a strong background in bioinformatics, and that's a > field that can surely benefit from FOSS as we want to encourage openness > and ethics when being on the forefront of scientific research that could > have sweeping societal impact. The last thing we need is more companies > like 23andMe hoarding genetic data for profit. > > Perhaps WLUG can do more to be involved in such things, emphasizing the > importance of "ethical" computing with the problems of DRM, > spying/tracking, proprietary software and data formats, software patents, > and licenses that lock away data that the community could benefit from. > Essentially we could give people more of an opportunity to think about the > social aspects and ramifications of technology, and can use that as a > framework for creating a better future. > > These are still ideas I'm throwing at the wall, hopefully something sticks! > > -Josh

Jan. 13, 2020

Improving WLUG outreach

by Joshua Stone

Hey all, I thought I'd like to continue the topic about what we could do to increase attendance meeting. I think working with the community at WPI would be a great thing for us, so long as we try to understand more about the student culture. I've learned that one of the most important things about WPI is that a sense of community and working toward a greater goal are included as part of the curriculum. One of the earliest classes a WPI student takes involves thinking about the biggest problems impacting the world and makes strides to tackling such problems head-on. https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/wpi-plan/10-things-to-know I believe WPI also has a strong background in bioinformatics, and that's a field that can surely benefit from FOSS as we want to encourage openness and ethics when being on the forefront of scientific research that could have sweeping societal impact. The last thing we need is more companies like 23andMe hoarding genetic data for profit. Perhaps WLUG can do more to be involved in such things, emphasizing the importance of "ethical" computing with the problems of DRM, spying/tracking, proprietary software and data formats, software patents, and licenses that lock away data that the community could benefit from. Essentially we could give people more of an opportunity to think about the social aspects and ramifications of technology, and can use that as a framework for creating a better future. These are still ideas I'm throwing at the wall, hopefully something sticks! -Josh

Jan. 13, 2020

Re: [EXT] The future of WLUG

by joshua.gage.stone＠gmail.com

Tim, Thank you very much for creating a meetup.com group for us! The UX for finding future meetups and adding meetup dates to a calender is quite good. Finding WLUG should also be fairly easy now when searching for "linux" within a 50 mile radius of Boston: https://www.meetup.com/find/?allMeetups=false&keywords=linux&radius=50&user… I've noticed that some search strings will show LUGs with overlapping interests but not WLUG. I think adding more words like "FOSS", "Android", "Libre", "Open Source", "Ubuntu", "Fedora", "OpenSUSE", "Arch Linux", "Unix", etc, to the related topics and/or What We're About section should improve this. I've tried setting up a community over Slack but I think the steps need to join was what made it too intrusive for new people -- take joining the Rust language Slack server for example: https://rust-slack.herokuapp.com/ - Send an invite link to your email- Register with a name and password- Be greeted with prompts about whether to send notifications- Open the #general channel And this has to be repeated for joining every community that has their own Slack server, or at least this has been my experience so far. I think Slack has cemented itself as more of a means for teams to collaborate on a project, not so much for casual users who want to jump right into a new chat. Matrix only needs to register a username and password (email is optional) on the server you're on, and once that's done you can join any number of channels on that server. This is much closer to the UX of IRC, and it's still superior in some ways because there's no fiddling with choosing a specific authentication method like SASL and/or authenticating with nickserv I think in general Matrix has more mindshare amongst Linux users as a modern alternative to IRC, which I think is worth considering when comparing frequency of posts on Reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/search?q=matrix&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevanc… -Josh On Sat, 2020-01-11 at 22:59 -0500, Tim Keller via WLUG wrote: > This morning I went out and created a meetup group for WLUG: > https://www.meetup.com/Worcester-Linux-Users-Group and paid for six > months. Feel free to go and join up if you'd like. > The matrix stuff is cool, I cut my teeth on IRC so I'm always partial > to the old school but I also understand that eventually we'll want a > slack channel as well maybe. > > Tim. > > > > > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 4:07 PM Anderson, Charles R via WLUG < > wlug(a)lists.wlug.org> wrote: > > We also have an IRC channel: > > > > > > > > http://www.wlug.org/participate.html > > > > > > > > Internet Relay Chat > > > > > > > > Join the realtime chat on our IRC channel. > > > > > > > > Connect your IRC client to irc.freenode.net > > > > Join the #wlug-ma channel or join directly from this link: > > irc://irc.freenode.net/#wlug-ma. > > > > See more information about Freenode and join the chat from your > > web browser > > > > > > > > but maybe IRC is too old school--no one chats on it anymore. > > > > > > > > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 04:03:14PM -0500, Joshua Stone via WLUG > > wrote: > > > > > Hey all, > > > > > > > > > > Last night's meeting was excellent, and I'd like say thanks again > > to > > > > > Tim for giving me a ride home! > > > > > > > > > > Last night's discussion gave me ideas of ways we could improve > > general > > > > > activity, increase attendence, and improve outreach efforts. > > Hosting a > > > > > meetup.com group would be certainly improve discoverability, and > > > > > getting in touch with WPI's computer science group would be great > > too. > > > > > > > > > > I think what a lot communities are doing nowadays is having a > > text chat > > > > > format for users who want to communicate more easily over the > > internet, > > > > > especially with mobile devices. As an example, there are Discord > > > > > servers for Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, etc, and they have room > > sizes > > > > > generally in the hundreds or even well over a thousand. Even > > before > > > > > Discord they'd use IRC for providing support, posting updates, > > etc. > > > > > > > > > > Having a text chat of our own would certainly help improve > > > > > participation -- I think Matrix would be a good option here > > because it > > > > > has many nice features and has a fairly polished user experience: > > > > > > > > > > - Numerous clients available on desktop, mobile, and web ( > > > > > https://matrix.org/clients/ > > > > > - Persistent chat history > > > > > - Link previews > > > > > - Various bots to choose from for adding functionality ( > > > > > https://matrix.org/docs/projects/bots/ > > > > > - User moderation > > > > > - Server federation > > > > > - Self-hosting available, both client and server are completely > > FOSS > > > > > - File sharing > > > > > - Voice/video calls > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I have a screenshot if anyone wants to see what a Matrix chat > > room > > > > > would look like: > > > > > > > > > > https://i.imgur.com/aVILcWB.png > > > > > > > > > > Or you can join the room I made: > > > > > > > > > > https://matrix.to/#/!EiTljkvagZDFKfQfFu:matrix.org?via=matrix.org > > > > > > > > > > Alteratively, if you have a Matrix client already: > > > > > > > > > > #wlug:matrix.org > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Any thoughts? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -Josh > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > WLUG mailing list -- wlug(a)lists.wlug.org > > > > To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave(a)lists.wlug.org > > > > > _______________________________________________WLUG mailing list -- > wlug(a)lists.wlug.org > To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave(a)lists.wlug.org

Jan. 12, 2020

Re: [EXT] The future of WLUG

by Tim Keller

This morning I went out and created a meetup group for WLUG: https://www.meetup.com/Worcester-Linux-Users-Group and paid for six months. Feel free to go and join up if you'd like. The matrix stuff is cool, I cut my teeth on IRC so I'm always partial to the old school but I also understand that eventually we'll want a slack channel as well maybe. Tim. On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 4:07 PM Anderson, Charles R via WLUG < wlug(a)lists.wlug.org> wrote: > We also have an IRC channel: > > http://www.wlug.org/participate.html > > Internet Relay Chat > > Join the realtime chat on our IRC channel. > > Connect your IRC client to irc.freenode.net > Join the #wlug-ma channel or join directly from this link: irc:// > irc.freenode.net/#wlug-ma. > See more information about Freenode and join the chat from your web > browser > > but maybe IRC is too old school--no one chats on it anymore. > > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 04:03:14PM -0500, Joshua Stone via WLUG wrote: > > Hey all, > > > > Last night's meeting was excellent, and I'd like say thanks again to > > Tim for giving me a ride home! > > > > Last night's discussion gave me ideas of ways we could improve general > > activity, increase attendence, and improve outreach efforts. Hosting a > > meetup.com group would be certainly improve discoverability, and > > getting in touch with WPI's computer science group would be great too. > > > > I think what a lot communities are doing nowadays is having a text chat > > format for users who want to communicate more easily over the internet, > > especially with mobile devices. As an example, there are Discord > > servers for Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, etc, and they have room sizes > > generally in the hundreds or even well over a thousand. Even before > > Discord they'd use IRC for providing support, posting updates, etc. > > > > Having a text chat of our own would certainly help improve > > participation -- I think Matrix would be a good option here because it > > has many nice features and has a fairly polished user experience: > > > > - Numerous clients available on desktop, mobile, and web ( > > https://matrix.org/clients/ > > - Persistent chat history > > - Link previews > > - Various bots to choose from for adding functionality ( > > https://matrix.org/docs/projects/bots/ > > - User moderation > > - Server federation > > - Self-hosting available, both client and server are completely FOSS > > - File sharing > > - Voice/video calls > > > > > > I have a screenshot if anyone wants to see what a Matrix chat room > > would look like: > > > > https://i.imgur.com/aVILcWB.png > > > > Or you can join the room I made: > > > > https://matrix.to/#/!EiTljkvagZDFKfQfFu:matrix.org?via=matrix.org > > > > Alteratively, if you have a Matrix client already: > > > > #wlug:matrix.org > > > > > > > > Any thoughts? > > > > > > -Josh > _______________________________________________ > WLUG mailing list -- wlug(a)lists.wlug.org > To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave(a)lists.wlug.org > -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

Jan. 12, 2020

Re: [EXT] The future of WLUG

by hammerron

I use IRC from time to time on other channels, averaging about once a week. I peer into the WLUG channel from time to time. I will make "noise" in the future when there. On 1/10/20 4:07 PM, Anderson, Charles R via WLUG wrote: > We also have an IRC channel: > > http://www.wlug.org/participate.html > > Internet Relay Chat > > Join the realtime chat on our IRC channel. > > Connect your IRC client to irc.freenode.net > Join the #wlug-ma channel or join directly from this link: irc://irc.freenode.net/#wlug-ma. > See more information about Freenode and join the chat from your web browser > > but maybe IRC is too old school--no one chats on it anymore. > > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 04:03:14PM -0500, Joshua Stone via WLUG wrote: >> Hey all, >> >> Last night's meeting was excellent, and I'd like say thanks again to >> Tim for giving me a ride home! >> >> Last night's discussion gave me ideas of ways we could improve general >> activity, increase attendence, and improve outreach efforts. Hosting a >> meetup.com group would be certainly improve discoverability, and >> getting in touch with WPI's computer science group would be great too. >> >> I think what a lot communities are doing nowadays is having a text chat >> format for users who want to communicate more easily over the internet, >> especially with mobile devices. As an example, there are Discord >> servers for Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, etc, and they have room sizes >> generally in the hundreds or even well over a thousand. Even before >> Discord they'd use IRC for providing support, posting updates, etc. >> >> Having a text chat of our own would certainly help improve >> participation -- I think Matrix would be a good option here because it >> has many nice features and has a fairly polished user experience: >> >> - Numerous clients available on desktop, mobile, and web ( >> https://matrix.org/clients/ >> - Persistent chat history >> - Link previews >> - Various bots to choose from for adding functionality ( >> https://matrix.org/docs/projects/bots/ >> - User moderation >> - Server federation >> - Self-hosting available, both client and server are completely FOSS >> - File sharing >> - Voice/video calls >> >> >> I have a screenshot if anyone wants to see what a Matrix chat room >> would look like: >> >> https://i.imgur.com/aVILcWB.png >> >> Or you can join the room I made: >> >> https://matrix.to/#/!EiTljkvagZDFKfQfFu:matrix.org?via=matrix.org >> >> Alteratively, if you have a Matrix client already: >> >> #wlug:matrix.org >> >> >> >> Any thoughts? >> >> >> -Josh > _______________________________________________ > WLUG mailing list -- wlug(a)lists.wlug.org > To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave(a)lists.wlug.org

Jan. 11, 2020

Re: [EXT] The future of WLUG

by joshua.gage.stone＠gmail.com

> I used IRC once; it worked. I have no idea what Discord, Matrix, > Telegram, > etc. are. Do they interoperate? Are they open standards? RFC-NNNN? Discord and Telegram very closed actually (outright malicious at times where they can ban anyone who tries to implement a third-party client), but they're very popular because most people -- even FOSS developers -- favor a polished experience so they can spend more time interacting with users than troubleshooting technical problems. That being said, I'd lean more toward Matrix because it is an open standard (no official RFC as far as I'm aware), with all source code being available along with protocol documentation: https://github.com/matrix-org https://matrix.org/docs/spec/ It's one of the few protocols built with federation in mind, so a user can log into one server and communicate with other on a different server, not unlike email. It's also more robust than what IRC networks do for load balancing of user traffic where a room can experience a netsplit if a server goes down. > I think you just said that all of it is run from a central "server" > that is under control of ??? In the case Matrix, you have the option of running your own server (reference server located at https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse) or you can use the official matrix.org server which is run by the same developers. One of the nice things about Matrix is that you have all of these choices for server hosting and clients like on IRC. > Personal computer should suffice. Unless mistakes were made. That's actually what I mean by a personal cloud -- if you need to configure a bouncer for a feature like persistent history, then that means you need at least one computer to designate for said bouncer, and you need to configure your firewall at home if you want to be able to connect to it from a public hotspot. Far from ideal, and can leave you exposed if you're not careful (Do we also want to set up a VPN to hide our IP address, use fail2ban in case a malicious party tries to DDOS us? etc, etc, etc). Far too much work to be placed on individuals who'd rather just chat. > OK. Carry on. I am happy without bot chats. I'm also happy about not having to rely on bots! - Josh On Fri, 2020-01-10 at 19:13 -0500, Keith Wright via WLUG wrote: > "joshua.gage.stone--- via WLUG" <wlug(a)lists.wlug.org> writes: > > > I think IRC would've been a great choice about a decade ago, > > I used IRC once; it worked. I have no idea what Discord, Matrix, > Telegram, > etc. are. Do they interoperate? Are they open standards? RFC-NNNN? > > > IRC essentially pushes implementation onto the client and/or need > > a bouncer to get features you'd get for free in other services. > > I think you just said that all of it is run from a central "server" > that is under control of ??? > > > You practically need a personal cloud > > Personal computer should suffice. Unless mistakes were made. > > > especially if you're on a mobile device that can't maintain an > > active > > connection at all times. You also need a bot if you want any kind > > of > > features like link previews. > > OK. Carry on. I am happy without bot chats. > > -- Keith > _______________________________________________ > WLUG mailing list -- wlug(a)lists.wlug.org > To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave(a)lists.wlug.org

Jan. 11, 2020

Re: [EXT] Re: [EXT] The future of WLUG

by Krichevsky, Nicholas J.

I've seen some Discord servers that incorporate integration between Telegram and Matrix (the openSUSE server comes to mind), but it is a labour of love and not anything built into the platforms themselves. They're really just fancy bot-hacks to make it look like certain people are talking. Matrix is the most open of the three, as it allows self-hosting and has "bridge" integration as a major feature (the aforementioned openSUSE example is one such integration). From what I can tell, Matrix is really just the answer to the privatization of chat we see from companies like Slack and Discord (which are both highly, highly successful, especially with us youngings). I don't know of anyone who uses it full time, other than Linux folks (but hey, I guess that's what this mailing list is for :) ) I've had some nice success with IRCCloud if I want a persistent connection on a mobile device, but it's not perfect (and is not free for > 2h connections). I've resorted to some of the more classic methods of using bouncers like ZNC for persistent IRC connections. ________________________________ From: Keith Wright via WLUG <wlug(a)lists.wlug.org> Sent: Friday, January 10, 2020 7:13 PM To: Worcester Linux Users' Group General Discussion <wlug(a)lists.wlug.org> Cc: wlug(a)lists.wlug.org <wlug(a)lists.wlug.org>; Anderson, Charles R <cra(a)wpi.edu>; joshua.gage.stone(a)gmail.com <joshua.gage.stone(a)gmail.com>; Keith Wright <kwright(a)keithdiane.us> Subject: [EXT] [WLUG] Re: [EXT] The future of WLUG "joshua.gage.stone--- via WLUG" <wlug(a)lists.wlug.org> writes: > I think IRC would've been a great choice about a decade ago, I used IRC once; it worked. I have no idea what Discord, Matrix, Telegram, etc. are. Do they interoperate? Are they open standards? RFC-NNNN? > IRC essentially pushes implementation onto the client and/or need > a bouncer to get features you'd get for free in other services. I think you just said that all of it is run from a central "server" that is under control of ??? > You practically need a personal cloud Personal computer should suffice. Unless mistakes were made. > especially if you're on a mobile device that can't maintain an active > connection at all times. You also need a bot if you want any kind of > features like link previews. OK. Carry on. I am happy without bot chats. -- Keith _______________________________________________ WLUG mailing list -- wlug(a)lists.wlug.org To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave(a)lists.wlug.org

Jan. 11, 2020

Re: [EXT] The future of WLUG

by Keith Wright

"joshua.gage.stone--- via WLUG" <wlug(a)lists.wlug.org> writes: > I think IRC would've been a great choice about a decade ago, I used IRC once; it worked. I have no idea what Discord, Matrix, Telegram, etc. are. Do they interoperate? Are they open standards? RFC-NNNN? > IRC essentially pushes implementation onto the client and/or need > a bouncer to get features you'd get for free in other services. I think you just said that all of it is run from a central "server" that is under control of ??? > You practically need a personal cloud Personal computer should suffice. Unless mistakes were made. > especially if you're on a mobile device that can't maintain an active > connection at all times. You also need a bot if you want any kind of > features like link previews. OK. Carry on. I am happy without bot chats. -- Keith

Jan. 11, 2020

Re: [EXT] The future of WLUG

by joshua.gage.stone＠gmail.com

I think IRC would've been a great choice about a decade ago, but it seems to have fallen out of favor as newer chat services have been added. It's less that IRC is old per se, rather virtually nothing has been done to improve the UX. IRC has some very unique problems where you have to actively configure something as simple as the port number to connect with and whether to enable TLS while other services have standardized on this long ago so users don't have to think about that. I remember when IRC was very popular among the communities I frequented years ago, but outside of FOSS projects many of these channels are now dead because people have moved onto Discord, Matrix, Telegram, etc. I think part of this can also be attributed to the advent of mobile, as IRC clients are usually painful on a phone where you have to type commands on a touchscreen. I also have found IRC to be blocked on some networks, while Matrix served over HTTPS is very firewall-friendly. As of 2020, there are still many features that're missing because IRC essentially pushes implementation onto the client and/or need a bouncer to get features you'd get for free in other services. You practically need a personal cloud if you want to be able to have persistent chat history and/or avoid flooding a channel with disconnect messages especially if you're on a mobile device that can't maintain an active connection at all times. You also need a bot if you want any kind of features like link previews. -Josh On Fri, 2020-01-10 at 21:07 +0000, Anderson, Charles R via WLUG wrote: > We also have an IRC channel: > > http://www.wlug.org/participate.html > > Internet Relay Chat > > Join the realtime chat on our IRC channel. > > Connect your IRC client to irc.freenode.net > Join the #wlug-ma channel or join directly from this link: > irc://irc.freenode.net/#wlug-ma. > See more information about Freenode and join the chat from your > web browser > > but maybe IRC is too old school--no one chats on it anymore. > > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 04:03:14PM -0500, Joshua Stone via WLUG > wrote: > > Hey all, > > > > Last night's meeting was excellent, and I'd like say thanks again > > to > > Tim for giving me a ride home! > > > > Last night's discussion gave me ideas of ways we could improve > > general > > activity, increase attendence, and improve outreach efforts. > > Hosting a > > meetup.com group would be certainly improve discoverability, and > > getting in touch with WPI's computer science group would be great > > too. > > > > I think what a lot communities are doing nowadays is having a text > > chat > > format for users who want to communicate more easily over the > > internet, > > especially with mobile devices. As an example, there are Discord > > servers for Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, etc, and they have room sizes > > generally in the hundreds or even well over a thousand. Even before > > Discord they'd use IRC for providing support, posting updates, etc. > > > > Having a text chat of our own would certainly help improve > > participation -- I think Matrix would be a good option here because > > it > > has many nice features and has a fairly polished user experience: > > > > - Numerous clients available on desktop, mobile, and web ( > > https://matrix.org/clients/ > > - Persistent chat history > > - Link previews > > - Various bots to choose from for adding functionality ( > > https://matrix.org/docs/projects/bots/ > > - User moderation > > - Server federation > > - Self-hosting available, both client and server are completely > > FOSS > > - File sharing > > - Voice/video calls > > > > > > I have a screenshot if anyone wants to see what a Matrix chat room > > would look like: > > > > https://i.imgur.com/aVILcWB.png > > > > Or you can join the room I made: > > > > https://matrix.to/#/!EiTljkvagZDFKfQfFu:matrix.org?via=matrix.org > > > > Alteratively, if you have a Matrix client already: > > > > #wlug:matrix.org > > > > > > > > Any thoughts? > > > > > > -Josh > _______________________________________________ > WLUG mailing list -- wlug(a)lists.wlug.org > To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave(a)lists.wlug.org

Jan. 10, 2020