The Linux User Group HOWTO is a guide to founding, maintaining, and
growing a GNU/Linux user group, co-authored by Kendall Clark and Rick Moen
(now maintained by Rick Moen).
</abstract>
<toc>
<sect>Introduction
<sect1>Purpose
<p>
The Linux User Group HOWTO is intended to serve as a guide to founding,
maintaining, and growing a GNU/Linux user group.
GNU/Linux is a freely-distributable implementation of Unix for personal
computers, servers, workstations, PDAs, and embedded systems. It was
developed on the i386 and now supports a huge range of processors from
tiny to colossal:
Note: The following supported-platforms list is not serious documentation.
The point is merely to illustrate the breadth of Linux's reach.
If seriously interested in the subject of Linux ports, please see also
<url name="Xose Vazquez Perez's Linux ports page" url="http://web.archive.org/web/20070813000855/http://www.itp.uni-hannover.de/ports/linux_ports.html"> and
<url name="Jerome Pinot's Linux architectures list" url="http://web.archive.org/web/20050308130348/http://ngc891.blogdns.net/kernel/docs/arch.txt"> (static mirrors, as both pages vanished in 2005), if only because
hardware support is more complex than just generic CPU functionality,
encompassing support for myriad bus variations and other subtle hardware
<item>Advanced RISC Machines, Ltd. <url name="ARM" url="http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/"> family (StrongARM SA-1110, XScale, ARM6, ARM7, ARM2, ARM250, ARM3i, ARM610, ARM710, ARM7TDMI, ARM720T, and ARM920T, including Sigma Designs DVD systems using ARM cores)</item>
<item><bf>SPARC International SPARC32 / SPARC64</bf></item>
<item><bf>Digital <url name="VAX"
url="http://vax-linux.org/"> minicomputers and MicroVAXen</bf></item>
<item><bf>Mainframes:</bf> <url name="IBM S/390 models G5 and G6 / zSeries models z800, z890, z900, and z990"
url="https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/linux390/"> and Fujitsu AP1000+ (SuperSPARC cluster)</item>
</itemize>
Note that some items listed were probably one-time forks, little or not
at all maintained since creation. On some of the rarer architectures,
<url name="NetBSD" url="http://www.netbsd.org/"> may be more practical.
(The
<url name="Debian GNU/kFreeBSD" url="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/"> port should also be solid enough to
serve as a compromise option, furnishing GNU/Linux userspace code on the
high performance / high stability FreeBSD kernel, and <url name="Dyson" url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_(operating_system)"> or another <url name="Illumos distribution" url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illumos#Relatives">
can provide something similar on the OpenSolaris kernel.)
<sect1>Other sources of information
<p>
If you want to learn more, the <url name="Linux Documentation Project"
url="http://www.tldp.org/"> is a good place to start.
For general information about computer user groups, please see the
<url name="Association of PC Users Groups" url="http://apcug2.org/">.
<sect>What is a GNU/Linux user group?
<p>
<sect1>What is GNU/Linux?
<p>
To fully appreciate LUGs' (Linux User Groups') role in the GNU/Linux
movement, it helps to understand what makes GNU/Linux unique.
GNU/Linux as an operating system is powerful -- but GNU/Linux as an
<it><bf>idea</bf></it> about software development is even more so. GNU/Linux
is a <bf>free</bf> operating system: It's licensed under the GNU General
Public Licence (and other open source / free software licences -- though
proprietary application software is sometimes also included in
particular packagings). Thus, source code is freely available in
perpetuity to anyone. It's maintained by a unstructured group of
programmers world-wide, under technical direction from Linus Torvalds
and other key developers. GNU/Linux as a movement has no central
structure, bureaucracy, or other entity to direct its affairs. While
this situation has advantages, it poses challenges for allocation of
human resources, effective advocacy, public relations, user education,
and training.
<p>
(This HOWTO credits the Free Software Foundation's
<it><url name="LinuxUser and Developer" url="http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/"></it> (UK),
<it><url name="Linux Magazine" url="http://www.linux-magazine.com/"></it> (German publishing firm; publishes in English, German, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish; North American edition is named <it>Linux Pro Magazine</it>),
<item>Announce your intentions on <tt>comp.os.linux.announce</tt> and on an appropriate regional hierarchy.</item>
<item>Announce your intention wherever computer users are in your area: bookstores, swap meets, cybercafes, colleges corporations, Internet service providers, etc.</item>
<item>Find friendly businesses or institutions in your area willing to help you form the LUG.</item>
<item>Form a mailing list or some means of communication among the people who express an interest in forming a LUG.</item>
<item>Ask key people specifically for help in spreading the word about your intention to form a LUG.</item>
<item>Solicit space on a Web server to put a few HTML pages together about the group.</item>
<item>Begin looking for a meeting place.</item>
<item>Schedule an initial meeting.</item>
<item>Discuss at the initial meeting the goals for the LUG.</item>
</itemize>
<sect1>Maintaining and growing a LUG
<p>
<itemize>
<item>Make the barriers to LUG membership as low as possible.</item>
<item>Make the LUG's Web site a priority: Keep all information current, make it easy to find details about meetings (who, what, and where), and make contact information and feedback mechanisms prominent.</item>
<item>Install distributions for anyone who wants it.</item>
<item>Post flyers, messages, or handbills wherever computer users are in your area.</item>
<item>Secure dedicated leadership.</item>
<item>Follow Linus Torvalds's <it>benevolent dictator</it> model of leadership.</item>
<item>Take the big decisions to the members for a vote. (Note: This HOWTO's second maintainer feels volunteers who do needed LUG work deserve significantly greater consideration for their views than do other members.)</item>
<item>Start a mailing list devoted to technical support and ask the "gurus" to participate on it.</item>
<item>Schedule a mixture of advanced and basic, formal and informal, presentations.</item>
<item>Support the software development efforts of your members.</item>
<item>Find way to raise money without dues: for instance, selling GNU/Linux merchandise to your members and to others.</item>
<item>(Very optional:) Consider securing formal legal standing for the group, such as incorporation or tax-exempt status.</item>
<item>Find out if your meeting place is restricting growth of the LUG.</item>
<item>Meet in conjunction with swap meets, computer shows, or other community events where computer users -- i.e., potential GNU/Linux users -- are likely to gather.</item>
<item>Elect formal leadership for the LUG as soon as practical: Some helpful officers might include President, Treasurer, Secretary, Meeting Host (general announcements, speaker introductions, opening and closing remarks, etc.), Publicity Coordinator (handles Usenet and e-mail postings, local publicity), and Program Coordinator (organises and schedules speakers at LUG meetings).</item>
<item>Provide ways for members and others to give feedback about the direction, goals, and strategies of the LUG.</item>
<item>Support GNU/Linux and free software / open source development efforts by donating Web/ftp space, or a mailing list.</item>
<item>Establish a Web/ftp site for relevant software.</item>
<item>Archive everything the LUG does for the Web site.</item>
<item>Solicit "door prizes" from GNU/Linux vendors, VARs, etc. to give away at meetings.</item>
<item>Give credit where due.</item>
<item>Submit your LUG's information to all the LUG lists.</item>
<item>Publicise your meetings on appropriate Usenet groups and in local computer publications and newspapers.</item>
<item>Compose promotional materials, like PostScript files, for instance, members can use to help publicise the LUG at workplaces, bookstores, computer stores, etc.</item>
<item>Make sure you know what LUG members want the LUG to do.</item>
<item>Release press releases to local media outlets about any unusual LUG events like an Installation Fest, Net Day, etc.</item>
<item>Use LUG resources and members to help local non-profit organisations and schools with their Information Technology needs.</item>
<item>Advocate the use of our OS enthusiastically but responsibly.</item>
<item>Play to LUG members' strengths.</item>
<item>Maintain good relations with vendors, VARs, developers, etc.</item>
<item>Identify and contact consultants in your area.</item>
<item>Network with the leaders of other LUGs in your area, state, region, or country to share experiences, tricks, and resources.</item>
<item>Keep LUG members advised on the state of software -- new kernels, bugs, fixes, patches, security advisories -- and the state of the GNU/Linux world at large -- new ports, trademark and licensing issues, where Torvalds is living and working, etc.</item>
<item>Notify the Linux Documentation Project -- and other pertinent sources of GNU/Linux information -- about the documentation the LUG produces: technical presentations, tutorials, local HOWTOs, etc.</item>
</itemize>
<sect>Legal and political issues
<p>
<sect1>Organisational legal issues
<p>
The case for formal LUG organisation can be debated:
<it>Pro:</it> Incorporation and recognised tax-exemption limits
liability and helps the group carry insurance. It aids fundraising.
It avoids claims for tax on group income.
<it>Con:</it> Liability shouldn't be a problem for modestly careful
people. (You're not doing skydiving, after all.) Also, even
incorporated technical groups seldom carry liability insurance, and that
insurance is typically so narrow in coverage that almost nothing a LUG
does would be covered. A corporate liability shield is little use for
such needs, either (limiting only the group's potential losses to the
equity stake of the owners, but conferring no immunity to anyone for
deeds that person carries out). Fundraising isn't needed for a group whose
companies, hackerspaces, or other friendly institutions, and can
therefore be free of charge to the public. No revenues and no expenses
means less need for organisation and concomitant hassles.
For whatever it's worth, this HOWTO's originator and second maintainer lean,
respectively, towards the pro and con sides of the issue -- but choose
your own poison: If interested in formally organising your LUG, this
section will introduce you to some relevant issues.
<bf>Note:</bf> this section should not be construed as competent legal
counsel. These issues require the expertise of competent legal
counsel; you should, before acting on any of the statements made in
this section, consult an attorney.
<sect2>Canada
<p>
Thanks to <htmlurl name="Chris Browne" url="mailto:%20cbbrowne@cbbrowne.com%20">
for the following comments about the Canadian situation.
<p>
The Canadian tax environment strongly parallels the US environment (for which,
see below), in that the "charitable organisation" status confers similar tax
advantages for donors over mere "not for profit" status, while
requiring that similar sorts of added paperwork be filed by the
"charity" with the tax authorities in order to attain and maintain
certified charity status.
<sect2>Germany
<p>
Correspondent <htmlurl name="Thomas Kappler" url="mailto:%20Thomas.Kappler@stud.uni-karlsruhe.de%20"> warns that the process of founding a non-profit entity in Germany
is a bit complicated, but comprehensively covered at <url
As for the second status, tax-exemption, this is not a legal status, so
much as an Internal Revenue Service judgement. It's important to realise
non-profit incorporation <bf>does not</bf> ensure that IRS will rule
your LUG tax-exempt. It is quite possible for a non-profit corporation
to <bf>not</bf> be tax-exempt.
IRS has a relatively simple document explaining the criteria
and process for tax-exemption. It is <bf>Publication 557:</bf>
<it>Tax-Exempt Status for Your Organization</it>, available as
an Acrobat file from the IRS's Web site. I strongly recommend
you read this document <bf>before</bf> filing for non-profit incorporation.
While becoming a non-profit corporation cannot
ensure your LUG will be declared tax-exempt, some
incorporation methods will <bf>prevent</bf> IRS from declaring your
LUG tax-exempt. <it>Tax-Exempt Status for Your Organization</it>
clearly sets out necessary conditions for your LUG to be declared
tax-exempt.
Finally, there are resources available on the Internet for non-profit
and tax-exempt organisations. Some of the material is probably
relevant to your LUG.
Common Misconceptions Debunked:
<itemize>
<item><p>Incorporation and tax-exempt status are separate issues. You don't have to be incorporated to get recognition of tax-exempt status (except it's required for one tax-exempt category, 501(c)(3)). You don't have to be tax-exempt to be incorporated. (Odds are, you honestly won't want either. You just probably assume you do.)</item>
<item><p>The "liability shield" one can get from incorporating <it>doesn't
protect volunteers from legal liability</it>. All it does is prevent any
plaintiffs from suing individual shareholders (LUG members, in this case)
for tort damages <it>merely because they own the corporation</it>, if the
corporation itself is alleged to have wronged the plaintiff. Plaintiff's
maximum haul in damages from suing the corporation is limited to the
corporate net assets, in that one case. However, volunteers are still
fully liable for any personal involvement they're alleged to have had.</item>
<item><p>Umbrella insurance coverage against tort liability (i.e., against civil litigation) for your volunteers almost certainly costs far too much for your group to afford (think $2,500 each and every year in premium payouts, give or take, to buy $1M in general liability insurance coverage -- which generally would cover only the corporation as a whole and its directors in the strict performance of their defined duties), if you can find it at all.</item>
<item><p>IRS recognition as a tax-exempt group doesn't mean donations to
your group necessarily become tax-deductible: Automatic deductibility is
reserved to <it>charities only</it>, IRS category 501(c)(3), which must obey
extremely stifling restrictions on group activities (e.g., it would then
become illegal to host anti-DMCA events or support any other political
activity), and must meet exacting paperwork and auditing standards. It's
difficult to envision 501(c)(3) charity status actually making functional
sense for any Linux group -- though one continually hears it recommended by
those who imagine being able to tell people their donations will be guaranteed tax deductible must justify any accompanying disadvantages. Most LUGs would more logically file (if at all) for recognition as a "social and recreation club", category <url url="http://web.archive.org/web/20090818124349/http://www.t-tlaw.com/lr-06.htm" name="501(c)(7)">.</item>
<item><p>In any event, unless one wishes to become a registered charity to render incoming donations tax-deductible, there is <it>literally no point</it> in applying for IRS recognition of your small, informal Linux group under any of the Internal Revenue Code section 501(c) tax-exempt statuses, because IRS simply doesn't care about groups with annual gross revenues less than $25,000, and <url url="http://www.guidestar.org/news/features/990_myths.jsp" name="doesn't want to hear from them"> (2010 update: IRS now does require a very simple annual <url url="http://epostcard.form990.org/" name="e-Postcard"> informational filing from all small non-profits, to keep their 501(c) certifications, but still doesn't want tax from them).</item>
<item><p>The <url name="Federal Volunteer Protection Act of 1997" url="http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c105:./temp/~c105ss2v68"> does <url name="not" url="http://www.runquist.com/article_vol_protect.htm">, in fact, shield volunteers of Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) charities from tort lawsuits. At most, it furnishes some legal defences that can be raised during (expensive) civil litigation, with a large number of holes and limitations, and in most states will be denied unless the group also carries large amounts of (very expensive -- see above) liability insurance. Also, unless the volunteer's duties are not very meticulously defined and monitored, and the alleged tort occurs strictly in the scope of those duties, there's no shield at all -- plus the litigated action must not involve a motor vehicle / aircraft / vessel requiring an operator's licence, nor may the volunteer be in violation of any state or Federal law, else again there's no shield at all. (On the bright side, it's completely false, as often alleged, that the volunteer must be a member of the group, to be covered: In fact, the Act clearly states that a volunteer may be anyone who performs defined services for a qualifying group and receives no compensation for that labour.)</item>
</itemize>
As may be apparent from the above, a number of groups have, in the past, talked themselves into unjustifiable levels of bureaucratic strait-jacketing with no real benefit and serious ongoing disadvantages to their groups, because of misconceptions, careless errors, and tragically bad advice in the above areas. In general, you should be slow to heed the counsel of amateur financial and tax advisors. (This HOWTO's maintainer had past experience during his first career as a <it>professional</it> finance and tax advisor, but, if you need competent advice tailored to your situation, please have a consultation with someone currently working in that field.)
<sect1>Other legal issues
<p>
<sect2>Bootlegging
<p>
As a reminder, it's vital that offers or requests to copy
distribution-restricted proprietary software of any sort be heavily
discouraged anywhere in LUGs, and banned as off-topic from all GNU/Linux user
group on-line forums. This is not generally even an issue -- much less
so than among proprietary-OS users -- but (e.g.) one LUG of my
acquaintance briefly used a single LUG-owned copy of PowerQuest's
Partition Magic on all NTFS-formatted machines brought to its
installfests for dual-boot OS installations, on a very dubious theory
of legality.
If it smells unlawful, it almost certainly is. Beware.
<sect2>Antitrust
<p>
It's healthy to discuss the consulting business in general in user
group forums, but for antitrust legal reasons it's a bad idea to get into
"How much do you charge to do [foo]?" discussions, there.
<sect1>Software politics
<p>
<url name="Chris Browne" url="mailto:%20cbbrowne@cbbrowne.com%20"> has the
following to say about the kinds of intra-LUG political dynamics that
often crop up (lightly edited and expanded by the HOWTO maintainer):
<sect2>People have different feelings about free / open-source software
<p>
GNU/Linux users are a diverse bunch. As soon as you try to put a lot of
them together, <it>some</it> problem issues can arise. Some, who are
nearly political radicals, believe all software, always, should be
"free". Because Caldera charges quite a lot of money for its
distribution, and doesn't give all profits over to <it>(pick favorite
advocacy organisation)</it>, it must be "evil". Ditto Red Hat or
SUSE. Keep in mind that all three of these companies have made and
continue to make significant contributions to free / open-source software.
(HOWTO maintainer's note: The above was a 1998 note, from before
Caldera Systems exited the GNU/Linux business, renamed itself to The SCO Group,
Inc., and launched a major copyright / contract / patent / trade-secret
lawsuit and PR campaign against GNU/Linux users. My, those times do change.
Still, we're grateful to the Caldera Systems that <em> was </em>, for
its gracious donation of hardware to help Alan Cox develop SMP kernel
support, for funding the development of RPM, and for its extensive past
kernel source contributions and work to combine the GNU/Linux and historical
Unix codebases.)
<p>
Others may figure they can find some way to highly exploit the
"freeness" of the GNU/Linux platform for fun and profit. Be aware that many
users of the BSD Unix variants consider <it>their</it> licences that
<it>do</it> permit companies to build "privatised" custom versions of
their kernels and C libraries preferable to the "enforced permanent
freeness" of the GPL as applied to the Linux kernel and GNU libc. Do
not presume that all people promoting this sort of view are necessarily
greedy leeches.
<p>
If/when these people gather, disagreements can occur.
<p>
Leaders should be clear on the following facts:
<itemize>
<item>There are a lot of opinions about the GPL and other open-source
licences and how they work -- mostly misinformed. It is easy to
misunderstand both the GPL and alternative licensing schemes. Most
attempts at debating same are, at root, pointless, ritualised symbolic
warfare among people who should know better. In the rare event that
participants actually aspire to understand the subject, please direct
them to the OSI's "license-discuss" mailing list and the Debian
Project's "debian-legal" mailing list, where substantive analysis is
possible and encouraged.
<item> GNU/Linux benefits from contributions from many places, including
proprietary-software vendors, e.g., in the Linux kernel, X.org, and
gcc.
<item> Proprietary implies neither better nor horrible.
</itemize>
<p>
The main principle can be extended well beyond this; computer "holy
wars" have long been waged over endless battlegrounds, including
GNU/Linux vs. other Unix variants vs. Microsoft OSes, the "IBM PC" vs.
sundry Motorola 68000-based systems, the 1970s' varied 8-bit systems
against each other, KDE versus GNOME....
<p>
A wise LUG leader will seek to move past such differences, if only
because they're tedious. LUG leaders ideally therefore will have thick
skins.
<sect2>Non-profit organisations and money don't mix terribly well.
<p>
It is important to be careful with finances in any sort of non-profit.
In businesses, which focus on substantive profit, people are not
typically too worried about minor details such as alleged misspending of
<it>immaterial</it> sums. The same cannot be said of non-profit
organisations. Some people are involved for reasons of principle, and
devote inordinate attention to otherwise minor issues, an example of C.
democracy, and turnover" section, Web site suggestions, and link
to "Recipe for a Successful Linux User Group" essay. Fixed mis-tagged
sections under "Legal and political issues".</item>
<item>1.6.8: Fixed small glitches. Rewrote section concerning
GNU/Linux news outlets; parts of sections concerning consultants, businesses,
and elections.</item>
<item>1.6.9: Minor corrections.</item>
<item>1.7.0: Caught up with GLUE membership having become free
of charge.</item>
<item>1.7.1: Added a bunch more newly supported embedded CPUs.</item>
<item>1.7.2: Added more on CPU support / ports (which section was always a bit silly, but I figure it might as well be exhaustive, correct, and <it>grandly</it> silly, if present at all); furnished matching URLs. Added details about GNU/Linux in India, and <it>LINUX For You</it> magazine. Expanded legal issues section.</item>
<item>1.7.3: Added mention of Debian GNU/NetBSD to the CPU ports
section. Reorganised and further expanded the latter. Recorded <it>Linux
Gazette</it>'s move to new hosting. Added <it>LinuxFocus</it>.</item>
<item>1.7.4: Added <it>LinuxWorld Magazine</it>, fixed URL of Recipe for
a Successful Linux User Group, which I moved. Added Tux.Org and
LinuxUserGroups.org as LUG support organisations.
<item>1.7.5: Added several more embedded CPUs to the supported list, implemented licence change (9 Jan 2004) to Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 1.0 or later after securing permission from Kendall Clark. (The HOWTO had previously been under the LDPL version posted at LDP's site in 1997, which by 2004 had become not only deprecated but also somewhat indeterminate as to content, because the licence had been edited in place with neither clear versioning nor a distinct URL for each revision.)</item>
<item>1.7.6: Corrected addresses for TeX User Group in USA and
UK. Added mention of C. Northcote Parkinson's Bike Shed Effect. Other
minor corrections.</item>
<item>1.7.7: Added reference to the UK Linux User Groups site.
Added description of PingoS e.V. Corrected URL for Thomas Kappler's
e-mail address. Added Volgograd LUG to Online Resources.</item>
<item>1.7.8: Added Jerome Pinot's Linux architectures list,
used some data from it. Added "I Linux User Group italiani".
Corrected capitalisation of PingoS. After securing permission from
Kendall Clark, added "or any later version" clause to document licence.</item>
<item>1.7.9: Corrected India Linux link and added
<it>LINUX For You</it>, per suggestions from Rohit Kumar. Added Linux
Foundation to list of candidates for receiving monetary support. Made fixes
to Red Hat LUG list (reincarnated as "Army of Friends" database), as suggested
by Vincenzo Virgilio. Added LinuxHQ and O'Reilly LUG lists and FSF GNU User
Groups list. Added Wikipedia Category:LUGs page. Dropped material about the
GLUE site, which SSC, Inc. tragically deleted in mid-2006 without allowing
anyone a chance to adopt it. Added kernel support for two more embedded chip
families. Substituted static mirrors for two (vanished) pages listing
Linux kernel ports. Dropped <it>LinuxWorld Magazine</it> (vanished).
Removed references to getting help in founding LUGs from Red Hat User
Group Program and Kara Pritchard's LinuxUserGroups.org (both vanished)
and from lug.net (deactivated). Added Swedish tax/regulatory details
from Martin Karlsson. Added analysis of issues surrounding incorporation,
tax-exempt status, and insurance in the USA. Found new URLs for a vast
number of links. Updated licence to Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0, to
incorporate improvements. Re-sorted country coverage into alphabetical
order (a small gesture to further reduce US-centrism).</item>
<item>1.8.0: Corrected typos. Improved some markup. Expanded "Common Misconceptions Debunked" section to address recently popular errors about USA Volunteer Protection Act of 1997, civil liability, and IRS 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. Linked directly to the Act and an analysis page. Furnished links for <it>Non-Lawyers' Non-Profit Corporation Kit</it>, for <it>DistroWatch Weekly</it>, and for the Raymond quotation.</item>
<item>1.8.1: Banished more typos. (I blame society.)</item>
<item>1.8.2: Added more CPU ports. APCUG changed Web sites. Linux India's LUG list, lugww.counter.li.org (formerly Woven Goods's Linux Worldwide LUG list), Red Hat Army of Friends, LUG Webring, O'Reilly LinuxGroups, and LINUX For You Magazine (of India) LUG List vanished. IDG moved the Raymond article (again). LinuxFocus was revived via a CMS. NewsForge was shut down by The Company Formerly Known as VA Linux. Linux International Development Grant Fund program vanished. Project Gutenberg moved to its own domain. Colorado Linux Users and Enthusiasts moved. Added mention of IRS e-Postcard for 501(c) non-profits. Added Linux Users Group - Delhi. Added New Zealand Linux Resource. Added Project Runeberg.</item>
<item>1.8.3: Replacement ARM Linux Web site. New URLs for many embedded and other systems. SoftBlaze renamed to PetaLinux. LUGs WorldWide Project, Linux Online -- User Groups, LinuxHQ User Groups, and New Zealand Linux Resource vanished. Free Software Foundation GNU Users Groups got moved/renamed to LibrePlanet Group List. New URLs for LinuxFormat and LinuxCounter. PingoS e.V. vanished (though its SelfLinux project for hypertext tutorials in the German language persists). Linux User Group of Singapore, St. Petersburg Linux User Group, and Svenska Linuxforeningen folded.</item>
<Item>1.8.4: Linux.org (without its former Linux Online branding) has been rebuilt and offers a new LUG directory.</item>
<Item>1.8.5: Replaced defunct NexentaOS with Dyson and other
IllumOS distributions. Recorded new URL for APCUG. Rewrote introduction
to list of supported hardware platforms to stress that this part isn't
serious documentation, but just intended to illustrate the breadth of
Linux's reach. Corrected slightly incorrect statement about licensing of
Linux-based OSes. Added new section Avoiding Burnout and Decline.
Added hackerspaces to list of possible meeting venues. Added Lugslist, which
heroically rose in 2015 to explicitly compensate for collapse of the
much-missed lugww.counter.li.org and GLUE LUG lists. Removed linux.org
LUG list, which Michael McLagen's Linux Online, Inc. deleted without notice.
Removed Yahoo Linux > User Groups, vanished along with all the rest of
dir.yahoo.com. Removed CLUE: the Canadian Linux Users' Exchange at
www.linux.ca, which is down for rebuild but is promised to be back Q1
2016. Corrected URL for Linux Australia's LUG list. Removed <it>Linux
Gazette</it>, folded in 2011. Removed <it>Linux Focus</it>, dormant
since 2010. Updated name and Web site of <it>LINUX for You</it>
magazine, which has now become <it>OpenSource For You</it>.
<it>easyLinux</it>, <it>LinuxUser</it>, and <it>Ubuntu User</it>.
Clarified where each magazine originates and detail national versions of
LinuxMagazine. Replaced reference to Win4Lin with one to CrossOver
Linux. Added caution that Linux Consultants Guide is a decade out of
date. Removed Open Source Applications Foundation, which seems to have
died shortly Mitch Kapor left it in 2008. Added further clarification
about limited benefits of incorporation and insurance. Annotated LibrePlanet
list as being FSF affiliates only. Updated claim about how many LUGs
exist worldwide. Updated version of CC BY-SA licence applicable to this
HOWTO from 3.0 to 4.0. Included nod to realism that, no, the world at large
is never going to adopt the usage "GNU/Linux", but please indulge me anyway.
Linked in two appropriate places to separate Meetup.com rant.
<Item>1.8.6: Fixed new typos and punctuation errors, revised antiquated emphasis on ftp, and averted one quibble about tax-exempt status not requiring incorporation (the 501(c)(3) exception). Politely disagreed with Kendall's implication that everyone deserves an equal say in "big decisions".
<Item>1.8.7: Add Software Freedom Conservancy and The Mozilla
Foundation.
</item>
</itemize>
<sect1>Acknowledgements
<p>
I would like to give a big thank-you to Kendall Grant Clark for the
initial versions of this document in 1997-1998, and for trusting me to take
over and renovate his creation starting in 2003.
Warm regards and thanks to <url name="Chris Browne"
url="mailto:%20cbbrowne@cbbrowne.com%20"> for describing the situation with
non-profit and charitable groups in Canada, his thoughts on financial
donations as a way to participate in GNU/Linux and the free software and
open-source software movements, and his ideas about the kinds of
political issues likely to arise within LUGs.
In addition, the following people have made helpful comments and
