Today we celebrate Labor Day in the US, a way to mark the advances organized workers have won from management of corporations in our country. Those wins are ancient history, given the current outsource-globalized-contract strategy of businesses, including your IT industry. But there remains a place where a labor movement of another kind could make a difference in the value of using an HP 3000: A user group.

The HP 3000 customer lost a resource dedicated to all aspects of the server when Interex died five years ago. The Encompass user group, and Connect which followed, have the 3000 on their intake polls, but little to offer a company that won't be migrating off the server anytime soon. Labor might change that situation. Connect seems ready to embrace volunteer labor for the homestead community. The group can supply management.

One project is ready for volunteer labor. The effort would benefit from the organization of a formal user group. The classic Contributed Software Library (CSL) could be shared as a community resource if this collection of open source tools could get some organization: names of what's available, a slight summary of each program, an easy way to download them. Interex made the CSL available to members, something Connect is eager to attract.

A former Interex board member, Paul Edwards, has several collections of CSL programs, but he's busy working on education for HP 3000 professionals. Is there a labor resource out there that can put the CSL back into the toolbelts of 3000 pros? There's management ready to offer organization, but a volunteer's labor seems needed to complete the collaboration and free these contributions.

I interviewed Connect's executive director Kristi Browder and their new marketing exec Nina Buik last week. Both reported they would be glad for the participation of 3000 homestead workers. They need volunteers; there were a few talks between Connect and the Greater Houston RUG in 2007 that produced little interest from that veteran 3000 group. "It takes two willing parties to create that kind of relationship," Buik said, adding that there is a virtual cubicle available for a volunteer who'd want to use Connect to help organize HP 3000 homestead resources.