[Menai-LUG] Re: [Northwales] RE: Northwales Digest, Vol 138, Issue 9

[Kevin Donnelly]

(portmanteau reply - thanks for all the thoughts so far!)

On Sunday 25 February 2007 16:30, Michael A Orton wrote:
> I thought it would be good to compare the price of using existing PCs and
<snip>
> This will be an issue and it would also show that any DOs/Windows file
> could be opened, edited, saved as any Windows or Linux format.
<snip>
> You could also network the computers to show that there were no problems
> having both VISTA and Linux on the same network.
<snip>

Yes, on reflection these are actually valid points, and may be a good argument 
for having an "interoperability" demo area.

On Monday 26 February 2007 23:39, giorgos karagiozopoulos wrote:
> First of all my opinion is that if we want to promote linux beyond the non
> profit area we are doing in the wrong way .First step is to gather all the
> interested people an meet face to face.Brainstorming without face to face
> contact is not effective.

I agree, but I've always found that it's better to brainstorm on the basis of 
a few facts or suggestions.  A meeting sometime in March would be a good 
idea, I think.

> Second you muste what kind of raw materials you 
> have and their interest area.third is the most hard thing to do the market
> research.
<snip>

Good point.  The problem is that although there are quite a few news accounts 
on individual companies or governments adopting FLOSS (free/libre/open-source 
software), there is very little information relating to regions.  So the only 
way to get info for North Wales is to do a survey, and that in itself costs 
money.  (I also tend to think you get rather dubious information in any case, 
depending on how you ask the questions.  For instance, if you ask, "Would you 
be interested in lowering the cost and downtime associated with viruses and 
security problems?", you'll get info that "supports" Linux.  But if you ask 
"Do you feel that decreasing the cost and downtime associated with viruses 
and security problems is worth the training costs and possible downtime 
associated with learning a new OS?", you'll get info that "supports" 
Microsoft Windows.)  I'm not sure how you square this circle, and in fact 
that was one of the aims of this meeting/seminar - people can't really make 
sensible choices if they don't know what choices exist.  If we can 
demonstrate what is possible, we might get a few people to start looking 
beyond the marketing ads.

> I attach some usefull adresses to strength your position.

Thanks!

On Tuesday 27 February 2007 18:27, Richard Smedley wrote:
> Similar events aimed at introducing businesses to software freedom
> have been organised in S Yorks. Here the local Business Link got
> involved, which meant the event was well-publicised to small
> and medium-sized local businesses :-)

Yes, I think that's essential.  It may be that we need to approach them with 
some fairly concrete ideas first before they will feel the desire to be 
involved, though.

> The first year they had Georg Greve and Jeremy Allison speaking =o)

Cool!  People like that could either give a very general but authoritative 
introduction to a topic, or a detailed nuts-and-bolts talk for enthusiasts.

> > > So I suppose I'm soliciting responses on whether I should (a) do
> > > nothing, (b) go for small meeting, or (c) go for larger meeting.
>
> I like (c) best ;-)

Yes - it's a challenge, isn't it? :-)

> Talking of FOSDEM, where were you this year?

Hehe.  My Iron Chancellor sets strict limits on my Linux budget, and virement 
is frowned upon!   I'm half-thinking of the Linux Audio thing in Berlin in 
March (http://www.kgw.tu-berlin.de/~lac2007/index.shtml), so I skipped FOSDEM 
this year.  Sound apps in Linux are developing quite nicely now, and it might 
be a good way of getting up to speed on that.  And of course, it would give 
some ideas for the multimedia track ... :-)

> > > - stands to be free, but donations accepted;
> > > - 4 presentation tracks: business (deployment, office stuff,
> > > servers), multimedia (edutainment, games, music, etc), home (office
> > > suites, email, internet, etc), Welsh (software in Welsh, how to get
> > > more of it, etc);
>
> Do you think a home track is needed?
> There are advantages to keeping a pure business focus, although I feel
> social enterprise should be a _clear_ part of this :-)

Hmm.  You may be right - anything relevant could be split into the business or 
multimedia tracks, and that would certainly be one less thing to think about.

> > > - all screens to be running Linux;
>
> I'll take that as $YOUR_FAVOURITE_FREE_OS

Michael's points above about interoperability may mean that a couple of errant 
legacy boxes get in :-(  Apart from those, any flavour of Linux, yes, but 
would extending to any FLOSS OS lose focus and confuse those attending 
(especially if they're business types)?   Just for curiosity, has anyone on 
these lists looked at/used Haiku, Symphony, OpenSolaris, or any other FLOSS 
OS?  

> > > - basic (ie no stuff like RAID, or 3D drivers) installations done
> > > for ?Ubuntu and ?openSUSE, at a fee of £10.
>
> With Intel graphics, 3D and Beryl on Debian is pretty trivial :-)

Hehe.  :-)  A demo would be great, but I'm just a bit concerned about how 
robust they would be for any "ordinary" installs, and 3D stuff does sometimes 
need a bit of tweaking, expecially for ATI.

> > > How about free to charities, social entrepreneurs etc, but a (small)
> > > charge for businesses?
>
> If the event becomes expensive to run, I'm happy as a
> social entrepreneur to pay for a stand.

Thanks.  We need more detailed pricing info first, really.

> Again, a clear business focus would work well. It would
> need to be a very different sort of event for home users.

I think this is probably the crucial "base" decision.  Focussing on 
businesses/ social enterprises/education would make it easier to organise 
(less spread to cover).  But the numbers are going to be smaller (though 
possibly more influential), therefore the charge would need to be higher.  
Having the hoi poloi would give more of a buzz, you might attract a wider 
range of stands, and from a publicity point of view you would get a bigger 
bang for the buck.  Any views/rationales on this would be welcome.

-- 
Pob hwyl / Best wishes

Kevin Donnelly

www.kyfieithu.co.uk - KDE yn Gymraeg
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