user group = users group?

[ikasso]

Would you be so kind to explain what is the difference -if any - between "user group" and "users group"

[dragn]

There's no difference in meaning. People do say both; however, I suspect user group would enjoy a slight preference among native speakers. The reason is that when we use a countable noun to modify another noun, we tend to use the singular form in most (but not all) cases.

Greg

[ikasso]

thank you, Greg

[Tdol]

There's no difference in meaning.

I'm wondering whether there might be a distinction of sorts, though thinking aloud. For instance, Mac users group sounds natural to me, possibly because the members would all be Mac users but not all Mac users would be in the group.

[konungursvia]

Everyone seems to be forgetting the apostrophe for the possessive. I think we can tell the OP that we can write either "user group" (usually meaning an administrative group in unix or linux with specific permissions and ownership rules) or "users' group" (meaning a club of like-minded people all using the same hardware or software and helping each other with interesting and useful information). To me, it's safe to say "users group" is a very common but lax usage that ignores the possessive, but was originally less correct than "users' group". Just my 2 cents.