[Lopsa-regional-project] project start

[Eric Eisenhart]

On Fri, Jan 06, 2006 at 06:26:51PM -0700, der.hans wrote:
> "Organize and implement technical and other support for local and regional
> LOPSA affilitated groups. Also involved in defining the relationship
> between local groups and LOPSA."

> To start with I think we need to concentrate on defining what types of
> groups we'd like to work with and make contact in our local areas.

Well, I can think of 3 types of groups:
1) Existing sysadmin-specific groups, such as BayLISA
2) Existing related groups, such as Linux User Groups, especially if they
   have a good portion of sysadmins.
3) Sysadmin-specific groups that haven't formed yet.
(related groups that haven't formed intentionally omitted)

Does LOPSA want to be a "parent" organization for sysadmin specific groups
or otherwise provide help along those lines?

Most groups probably need a domain, a website and maybe 3 mailing lists
(announce, discuss/talk and organizers/board/steering; splitting up discuss
probably only makes sense once a group gets fairly large).  Content
Management of some sort for the web space is also very helpful.  Some groups
would be happy with foo.lopsa.org and foo-announce at lopsa.org, others might
really want their own domain; www.sysadfoo.org and announce at sysadfoo.org.

We're all sysadmins, so I'd expect most groups to have the *expertise* to
set these things up, but time and other resources can be a problem; a server
on your DSL will be unreliable at the most inconvenient time and using
workplace resources can be unreliable in other ways.

I'm assuming there's really no way for LOPSA to help groups get physical
meeting space, but that's definitely a potential challenge for groups.  Some
spaces require insurance, too.  Meeting at the local pizza joint's always an
option, but makes presentations difficult.

Looks like there's a separate "speakers" project -- should we eventually
work with them somewhat?  I suspect finding speakers is a challenge for any
of the categories of groups.

> There is some limited giveaway items available from LOPSA for regional
> groups.

Like stickers and T-shirts?