<item>Advanced RISC Machines, Ltd. <url name="ARM" url="http://www.arm.uk.linux.org/"> family (StrongARM SA-1110, XScale, ARM6, ARM7, ARM2, ARM250, ARM3i, ARM610, ARM710, ARM720T, and ARM920T, including Sigma Designs DVD systems using ARM cores)</item>
<item><bf>SPARC International <url name="SPARC32 / SPARC64" url="http://www.ultralinux.org/"></bf></item>
<item><bf>Digital <url name="VAX"
url="http://linux-vax.sourceforge.net/"> 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="http://www10.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/linux390/index.shtml"> and <url name="Fujitsu AP1000+ (SuperSPARC cluster)" url="http://cap.anu.edu.au/cap/projects/linux/"></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.
(Soon, the <url name="Debian GNU/NetBSD"
url="http://www.debian.org/ports/netbsd/"> port should be solid enough to
serve as a compromise option, furnishing GNU/Linux userspace code on the
highly portable NetBSD kernel.)
If seriously interested in the subject of Linux ports, please see also
<url name="Xose Vazquez Perez's Linux ports page"
url="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>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.</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>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 space, a mailing list, or an ftp site.</item>
<item>Establish an ftp/Web 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.) Fundraising isn't needed
for a group whose activities needn't involve significant expenses.
(Dead-tree newsletters are so 1980.) Not needing a treasury, you avoid
needing to argue over it, file reports about it, or fear it being taxed
away. Meeting space can usually be gotten for free at ISPs, colleges,
GNU/Linux-oriented companies, 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
In Sweden, LUGs are not required to register, but then are regarded as
clubs. Registration with Skatteverket (national tax authority) offers
two classification options: non-profit organisation or "economical
association". The latter is an organisation where the goal is to benefit
its members economically, and as such is probably unsuitable, being
traditionally used for collectives of companies, or building societies
/ co-operative tenant-owners, and such).
Non-profit organisations in Sweden doesn't have specific laws to follow.
Rather, general Swedish law applies: They can hire people and they can
make profit. Generally they don't pay tax on their profits. (Profits
stay in the organisation; unlike the case with "economical associations",
members don't receive business proceeds.) To be able to do business, you
must register with Skatteverket to get an "organisation number", allowing
the group to pay and get paid. Otherwise you will probably have to
arrange business through a member in his/her individual capacity.
It may then also be possible, after securing an organisation number to
apply for government financial support.
<sect2>United States of America
<p>
There are at least two different legal statuses a LUG in the USA may
attain:
<enum>
<item>incorporation as a non-profit entity</item>
<item>tax-exemption</item>
</enum>
Although relevant statutes differ among states, most states
allow user groups to incorporate as non-profit entities. Benefits
of incorporation for a LUG include limitations of liability
of LUG members and volunteers, as well as limitation or even exemption
from state corporate franchise taxes.
While you should consult competent legal counsel before incorporating
your LUG as a non-profit, you can probably reduce your legal
fees by being acquainted with relevant issues before consulting
with an attorney. I recommend the <it>Non-Lawyers' Non-Profit
Corporation Kit</it> (ISBN 0-937434-35-3).
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>Incorporation and tax-exempt status are separate issues. You don't have to be incorporated to get recognition of tax-exempt status. You don't have to be tax-exempt to be incorporated. (Odds are, you honestly don't want either. You just probably assume you do.)
<item>The "liability shield" one can get from incorporating doesn't
protect volunteers from legal liability. 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>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 $800 each and every year in premium payouts, give or take, to buy $1M in general liability insurance coverage), if you can find it at all.
<item>IRS recognition as a tax-exempt group doesn't mean donations to
your group necessarily becomes 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 imagines being able to tell people their donations will be guaratneed tax deductible must justify any accompanying disadvantages. Most LUGs would logically file for recognition as a "social and recreation club", category <url url="http://www.t-tlaw.com/lr-06.htm" name="501(c)(7)">.
<item>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 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">.
</itemize>
<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 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 processor support; furnished matching URLs. Added details about GNU/Linux in India, and Linux For You 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 Linux
Gazette's move to new hosting. Added LinuxFocus.</item>
<item>1.7.4: Added LinuxWorld Magazine, 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 to Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 1.0 after securiing permission from Kendall Clark.</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 LinuxForYou, 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 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 LinuxWorld
Magazine (vanished). Remove 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 CC BY-SA 3.0, to incorporate improvements.
</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
