• Community Resource
  To provide the community with a resource in the Linux world. Whether that be teaching the community about the benefits of using Linux or answering questions for News and Radio. We want to provide a place for the community to turn when in need of Linux expertise. Linux, unlike other groups, lacks a central headquarters. This is one of its strengths but can also be a downfall. Too often Linux is misrepresented and can reflect poorly on different aspects of GNU and Linux.

• Support/Education
  To provide support and education for all who desire it, free of charge. This includes new users and old.

• Social Networking
  To provide a place to socialize with others. Sharing ideas, learning from one another, forming friendships and having fun.

The New Mexico Linux Users Group meets to explore the benefits of the GNU public license, the open source model of program development, and a native POSIX compliant Unix environment on different computer architectures. The GNU license is of particular interest to the group. It provides for a level of assurance that the published source code will remain available for people who choose to view or in some way modify the code. This assurance of availability is contained in the notion of "copyleft". In the exact terms used by the Free Software Foundation:

This statement demonstrates the power of the GNU Public License. It is not just a novel legal document; It becomes a belief that everyone can benefit from quality software. People can benefit regardless of their professional affiliation. To publish a program's source code under GPL constructs an open source model of program development.

The New Mexico Linux Users Group comes together also to investigate the open source model of development by reviewing and contributing to the development and implementation of Linux. By using Linux one learns to follow Linux development and, therefore, gets a first hand look at software development. With every kernel release and kernel patch people are able to see how the code is changed to implement new capabilities into the Linux. Members of the group that are not able to write computer code are able to contribute to the development of Linux by using the software and submitting bug reports. So that the code can evolve into a more stable piece of software. Members can also contribute to the success of Linux and open source software by helping other people get started with new and unfamiliar software.

The New Mexico Linux Users Group also comes together to learn how to deploy a native Unix distribution on various computer architectures. Linux is currently available for the following platforms: x86, MIPS, StrongARM, PowerPC, DEC/Alpha, and Sun Sparc. Linux, by being supported on so many different types of hardware helps people migrate from a proprietary network topology to a platform independent network where all computers can be running the same software. It is these ideas that caused the formation of the New Mexico Linux Users Group. It is also these ideas that will keep the group growing.