[kwlug-disc] Linux Association Canada membership

[Doug Moen]

Okay. I decided to take one for the team, and signed up as a (free) Community member of LinuxAssociation.ca.

I now have unlocked the following superpowers:
• I opted in to the member newsletter.
• I can write and post articles on the member blog. So far, 1 post by Frank.
• I can participate in the forum. So far 5 posts by Andre, 1 reply by Jason.
• “Invitations to public webinars and events”
• There is a phone app for members that I could install, with push notifications.
• There is an opt-in online membership directory, which I added myself to. There are now 10 public members, of whom 7 are staff.

The forum and member blog are generally readable, but you must log in to post stuff. And they need my email to send me news & updates. Quite reasonable.

You can also get a paid membership, which supports the Association and provides voting rights and eligibility for committees and working groups. Again, this is reasonable.

The paid tiers are: $10 student, $25 individual, $75 professional, per year.
There are some additional perqs for paid members which I am dubious about.

So far, I find no definition of “Premium member”, or any way to access this by providing my “KWLUG membership ID”, whatever that is. Don't worry, Paul, I'm not too concerned about this.

Doug.

On Mon, Jul 6, 2026, at 5:07 PM, Paul Nijjar via kwlug-disc wrote:
> At the risk of causing a schism that tears KWLUG apart, I responded to
> Andre and said KWLUG could be listed as a member. I know that not
> everybody is on board with this but I am hoping we can all live with
> the decision. 
>
> In response, Andre made the following benefits available:
>
> - KWLUG members (what is a KWLUG member?) can become Premium members
>   of the Linux Association of Canada free of charge
> - KWLUG can become an "official LAC Chapter", whatever that means
>
> At this point I don't anticipate us becoming an official chapter. The
> other offer is open to whomever reads this thread, I guess.
>
> - Paul
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 25, 2026 at 07:31:48PM +0000, Doug Moen wrote:
>> Linux Association of Canada is now a registered non-profit with 3 people on the board of directors, so it is not a one-man show at this point.
>> 
>> There's a lot of activity on their web site.
>> 
>> Their Canadian Open Source Library has a writeup on a tech news site:
>> 
>>  https://betakit.com/linux-association-of-canada-launches-national-open-source-library/
>> 
>> The Linux Association of Canada has launched an open-source library it says will support digital sovereignty in Canada. The library was launched on June 2, with the intent of bolstering Canadian access to digitally sovereign, open-source software. The organization is accepting entries from anyone as long as the projects are open source—meaning software that is open for any user to access, modify, or distribute for free—and were founded or mainly developed in Canada. “With everything that’s happening in the world right now … it would be a good thing if we in Canada would regain our digital sovereignty back,” Duttmann said. “One step in that direction is using software that is created here, that’s out of Canada.”
>> 
>> So that's interesting. 315 Canadian FOSS projects listed so far:
>> https://www.linuxassociation.ca/library.php
>> 
>> Since someone asked if he is Mennonite, I found that Andre moved to Canada in 2014, from Germany, and was or maybe still is a truck driver.
>> https://siemenstransport.com/assets/testimonials.pdf
>> 
>> Doug.
>> 
>> On Thu, Jun 25, 2026, at 4:29 PM, Steve Izma wrote:
>> > On Thu, Jun 25, 2026 at 10:02:12AM -0600, Ron Singh wrote:
>> >> Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] Linux Association Canada membership
>> >> 
>> >> In the meantime, I will see if I can do a tele call or a vid
>> >> call with Andre to get a feel for where he is at.
>> >
>> > Good idea. And ask if he's Mennonite. Not a rarity for
>> > Saskatchewan.
>> >
>> > 	-- Steve
>> >
>> > -- 
>> > Steve Izma
>> > -
>> > Home: 35 Locust St., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada  N2H 1W6
>> > E-mail: sizma at golden.net  home: 519-745-1313 cell: 519-998-2684
>> >
>> > ==
>> > The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best – and
>> > therefore never scrutinize or question.
>> >     -- Stephen Jay Gould, *Full House: The Spread of Excellence
>> >        from Plato to Darwin*, 1996
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > kwlug-disc mailing list
>> > To unsubscribe, send an email to kwlug-disc-leave at kwlug.org
>> > with the subject "unsubscribe", or email
>> > kwlug-disc-owner at kwlug.org to contact a human being.
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> kwlug-disc mailing list
>> To unsubscribe, send an email to kwlug-disc-leave at kwlug.org
>> with the subject "unsubscribe", or email
>> kwlug-disc-owner at kwlug.org to contact a human being.
>
> _______________________________________________
> kwlug-disc mailing list
> To unsubscribe, send an email to kwlug-disc-leave at kwlug.org
> with the subject "unsubscribe", or email
> kwlug-disc-owner at kwlug.org to contact a human being.