[Sussex] [ Report ] Meet up at the Worthing Computer Fair

[Nicholas Butler]

Well we went , we saw, we asked.....

the fair was , not as previously reported exclusively Inkjet refills and 
cdr sellers. There was a pirated copy of Shrek 2 on display though. 
There were at least 20 vendors and the early morning crowds did not 
disappoint certainly the ability to access the stalls and talk to the 
vendors was limited by interested customers.

Of the collection of vendors we spoke to may were interested in seeing a 
Linux Stall available and were interested in providing equipement to 
have "approved" though we will need to make sure that we forewarn them 
before arriving.

A few vendors voiced either a lack of interest, or in the case of one 
vendor a complete revulsion of linux , though I suspect that was just a 
case of Install Incompetence.



Many vendors have experimented with Linux available with their products 
but found the on going development and distros to be a distraction.

We did ont really take the opportunity to speak to visitors though 
Dobbo, brave volumatic soul that he was did pounce on those showing 
interest in the copies of BSD and Suse available on one stand.

Which leads to a interesting issue , since we will be giving away Open 
Office and Debian and helping with installs we will certainly be putting 
the software vendors nose out of joint. So we need to approach them to 
help them to sell their software ontop of the work we do.

okay so thats my report,

in summary:
Theres an opportunity, a need and a market for the club to place a stall 
at these fairs to increase awareness of the club, increase awareness of 
OSS and spread some penguin [ or Chukie ]  to the masses.


Nik