Claiming to be one of the few user groups that is able to receive financial support and keep the group's relationship with vendors "at arms-length" is the Australian Unix Users Group (AUUG).
Users need to remain vendor neutral to rate a vendor and the products it sells objectively, Gordon Hubbard, who is AUUG's treasurer, said.
"Unlike some others that may be connected with vendors, AUUG has always been vendor neutral," Hubbard said.
"We do accept sponsorships especially for our annual conference, from around six to 12 vendors at different levels, but the group is in no way effected by the interests of sponsors. Nor has AUUG shown any favouritism between vendors," he said.
Hubbard said direct feedback from AUUG to vendors is low; the group's purpose is to act as a tech advisory group rather than an interest group for a particular vendor.
"AUUG promotes the use of open source and open standards across the entire range of free and proprietary Unix operating systems,” he said.
“This is most apparent from our recent open source in government conference where we provided a lead for the vendors to follow. Vendors take note of that.”
Although Hubbard declined to reveal the proportion of funding AUUG receives from its corporate sponsors, he said none have an “undue” influence.
“Quite a few vendors provide funding as it is necessary to have a balance between that and member funding,” he said. “With too little funding it’s hard to do things like take out insurance. A lack of financing can be a real impediment.”
AUUG now has between 50 and 100 corporate members, including some VARs and multinationals, but as with its funding, the group’s elections are not vendor-influenced.
“The board is critical to the success of AUUG and it is elected through a fair and democratic system,” Hubbard said. “Any member can be nominated and vote but the process is not based on vendor interests.”
Not all sunshine for JavaThe Australian Java Users Group (AJUG), keeps a “hands off” relationship with vendors despite being formed as a result of a technology originally developed by Sun Microsystems.. AJUG’s president, David Bullock, said although the group has been going for eight years, this year is the first in which Sun has been a supporter. “We’re not unhappy with Sun but don’t rave about them,” Bullock said. “AJUG has always been supported by its members and would still be around without vendor support.” Bullock said AJUG has introduced a corporate membership fee of “only $1500” in return for “prominent visual positioning on our Web site and possible e-mail tag lines”. “Other vendors haven’t been approached yet; however, I expect to get Borland, Oracle, BEA, Compuware and IBM as sponsors,” he said. “AJUG’s vice-president works for Sun which is good for us as Sun does not have a controlling interest.” |