[SGVLUG] PLEASE VOTE -- should this thread continue: Should we use biofuels? Was ...Tom & his Prius....

[David Lawyer]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2006 at 04:39:50PM -0700, Emerson, Tom wrote:
> Granted, it is an important topic, but is it an important LINUX topic?
> 
> If not Linux, is it a reasonable LUG topic?
> 
No. But it's already gotten momentum built up and needs to attempt to
resolve itself or at least come to some kind of a standoff.
Personally, I've learned a lot from it but mostly indirectly when I've
searched the Web for other facts and opinions.  What I've learned
might someday wind up on my website or possibly in some publication.
Since I'm more interested in transportation than Linux I've really
enjoyed this.

It's been much more enjoyable and educational for me than debates I got
into on a transportation discussion list where there was disbelief in
global warming and I was called an eco-socialist.  

There is one subject I mentioned in one of my posts, the foreign trade
imbalance, that does have a little to do with Linux.  That's the
foreign trade surplus the US has in services and I think this includes
the sales of Microsoft software in foreign countries.  As Linux
substitutes for Microsoft software in foreign markets, then one direct
effect to to worsen the balance of trade for the US.  But Linux does
create goodwill towards the US (Linux is not entirely a US product of
course) which could help us with exports, or even with possible future
foreign aid to the US should the US economy collapse, etc.

I could say a lot more about the problems and status of translation
efforts for Linux, but I don't want to start a new thread, I haven't
even read all the posts on diesels yet.

			David Lawyer