Editing Meeting-20080619

== Table Topics: Please Won't You Be My Neighbor? ==
Western PA Linux User Group will hold their third "Table Topics" meeting on Thursday, June 12, 2008 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm at [http://www.wplug.org/w/index.php/PaneraNH Panera Bread on McKnight Road]. The topic will be "Please Won't You Be My Neighbor?" The meeting facilitator will be [[User:Bethlynn|Beth Lynn Eicher]]. 

"Table Topics" meetings are a relaxed environment where we discuss current Linux and Open Source issues. A facilitator picks a topic and prepares questions for those gathered to generate conversation.  New Linux users and the curious are encouraged to attend.

If Open Source is a community, then are you a neighbor or a hermit? Everyone regardless of experience level and skill set is a potential asset. We will discuss ideas for contributions to the open source community. If it takes a village to raise a child, how many mentors does it take to turn a new Linux user into a guru? What brings you to the neighborhood of Linux? What makes you stay? Can we continue to count on the same volunteers until they burn-out? How can a Linux user group, an open source software project, or a Linux distribution evolve to meet today's business and personal needs. Ask not what your FLOSS can do for you, ask what you can do for your FLOSS!

== Discuss this topic now! ==
Here you are encouraged to begin the discussion by posting articles supporting the topic.

* [http://www.linux.com/articles/50878 Do LUGS still matter?] A critical look at the current state of Linux user groups.
* [http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/ How to encourage women in Linux] Treating people with respect regardless of differences should be common sense but do we always do it?
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(philosophy) Ubuntu definition] Nelson Mandela said "Ubuntu does not mean that people should not address themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you be able to improve?"
* [http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.minix/msg/2194d253268b0a1b Linus Torvalds' original newsgroup post] With one email, a Finnish student took a one-man project and turned it into a community owned operating system now known as Linux.