[vox-tech] Red Hat apache problem (was: [lugod lert] Help, please)

[Peter Jay Salzman]

i'll write a piece on this.  i've been meaning to do it for a long time
now.  the general gist of it is that we had some very good hardware
donated to the local high school where she works.

a month or two later we were trying to convince the city of davis to
give us a room for our meetings.  we wanted someone to be there to say
"look at what lugod has done.  they're good for the city.  they've done
all this good stuff for us.  it's in the city's best interest to help
this fledging group out.  they're doing good work and will be good for
the city of davis.".

not only did she not say "yes", she didn't even have the courtesy of
saying "no".  she simply ignored repeated pleas by bill and i to help us
out.

we ended up going to the city council with nobody to vouch that we had
done anything worthwhile for the city.  she knew the council members.
she was friends with them.  they would've listened to her.

in the end, the council denied our request.  things were getting very
urgent for us because our membership had swelled to about 30 at the
time, and we were seriously cramped for meeting space at the local pizza
joint that we were holding meetings at.  it was so bad that we were
getting ready to start telling people NOT to come to our meetings
because we simply didn't have room for everyone.

that had really hurt us.  especially after the hardware donations from
VA Linux that we had arranged.


there were other things too.


we figured that after the hardware donations we'd have people go to the
local highschool and have "after school" classes on things like system
administration, networking, and programming.  we'd have people come to
give classes, talks and help students become acquainted with linux and
the kinds of fun stuff that you can do with linux.  we were really
looking forward to it, since a high school is a perfect venue for that
kind of thing.  it was really good linux advocacy, which is what lugod
does best.

in the end, we got some really good members from the high school like
ryan and gabe.  but frankly, ryan and gabe would be special people
whether lugod existed or not.  some people are just like that.  we had
wanted to reach the people who may not have had the fortune of getting
to know linux.  the potential for new members and new converts to linux
from microsoft was vast.  we were totally optimistic: bigger meeting
room, high quality people from the highschool and a huge influx of new
linux converts.

before the hardware donations, she loved the idea and seemed totally
excited about it.   after the donations, she sent one or two emails
about the idea and then ignored all other contact we made with her.


there were other things too.


then there were reports that people were denied access to the machines
that were donated.  i don't know the details, but there were concerns
raised over who was getting access to the hardware and for what
purposes.  we wanted shell accounts for everyone so people could play
with linux.  maybe a webserver to help teach people how to admin apache
installations.  we never intended the machines to be used by a small
select group of people.  linux isn't about "special groups of people",
and neither is education.

again, we tried to contact her to find out what was happening.  again,
she didn't even have the courtesy to reply.  dead silence.  even if our
concerns were groundless, i don't think we deserved to be ignored.


there were other things too.


anyway, this is starting to become the piece i was intending to write.
i'll just end it here and write the story up in the next few days.  i'll
email the list when i'm done.


i don't think any one person has ignored as many of my emails as janet
meizel.  she was our best friend before the donations and wanted to have
nothing to do with us after the donations.

that's why i find it ironic that she had requested lert service.

pete



begin Rod Roark <rod@sunsetsystems.com> 
> Why did LUGOD need her?  What did she do?
> 
> -- Rod
> 
> On Thursday 05 December 2002 10:15 am, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> > nobody has treated LUGOD worse than janet meizel.  she totally snubbed
> > us when we needed her most.
> >
> > she backstabbed LUGOD, a non-profit organization that gets computers
> > donated to the local highschool and tons of modern computer books to an
> > aging public library...it's shameful.
> >
> > i find it funny she asked for LERT assistance.  the woman has balls,
> > that's for sure.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> vox-tech mailing list
> vox-tech@lists.lugod.org
> http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech

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