[Ambassadors] Event Report: Lindependence 2008

Thu Jul 31 17:01:32 UTC 2008

On Thu, 31 Jul 2008, Larry Cafiero wrote:

> Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 07:55:02 -0700
> From: Larry Cafiero <larry.cafiero at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: fedora-ambassadors-list at redhat.com
> To: fedora-ambassadors-list at redhat.com
> Subject: Re: [Ambassadors] Event Report: Lindependence 2008
> 
> To supplement Karsten's thorough report below, I will take some items
> from an earlier report made on the first two Lindependence events (so
> if some of this seems familiar, I apologize).
>
> Karsten is right about the third event: There was a different feel to
> the 7/26 event than the first two. More people were "just shopping"
> rather than bringing their machines in for installation (and as for
> Kai, the 12-year-old Mandriva "advocate," he is a member of the
> Cabrillo College GNU/Linux Users Group and gets the passion for his
> distro from his uncle. We like to have him around because it shows how
> even kids can use Linux -- even though most kids don't code in Perl,
> but I digress).
>
> Also, we had the Red Hat "Truth Happens" video looping on the main
> table during the course of the event, something we hadn't done on the
> first two.
>
> But about the first two events:
>
> Two of the three Lindependence events took place on July 13 and July
> 15 at the Felton Presbyterian Church in Felton, California. For a very
> short recap of the project, Lindependence is introducing GNU/Linux to
> the town of Felton during the month of July with the intention of a.)
> introducing Linux and FOSS to people and convert folks one town at a
> time, and b.) inspiring other GNU/Linux and FOSS advocates to do the
> same project in their own communities, with our help of course.
>
> We had originally planned to hold a Microsoft-free week at the end of
> July (this week, actually), however we found that so many people
> converted to GNU/Linux that it made the "comparison week" moot. More
> on this a little later.
>
> Four major distros -- Fedora, Mandriva, Ubuntu and Debian -- had
> representatives at the meetings, as well as OpenOffice.org
>
> About 150 people came over the course of four hours on Sunday (July
> 13) and perhaps the most interesting facet of the project was that
> people were asking to have their laptops and desktops converted from
> Windows -- they had had enough of Microsoft and they were looking for
> something new. By our estimation, 10-15 people left with GNU/Linux on
> their computers which personally I found astounding. Live CDs flew out
> the door. Frankly, I thought people would be apprehensive about trying
> GNU/Linux and FOSS, but there was such a groundswell against the
> Redmond product that it was awe-inspiring.
>
> While I was doing most of the oversight of the project as its
> organizer, I also represented Fedora and answered questions, showed
> Fedora 9 on both a iBook G3 and a Dell 5000 Inspiron laptop, and I
> handed out some Fedora 9 live CDs -- the live CDs were from the
> Cabrillo College GNU/Linux Users Group -- with my card in case they
> needed support. Were I not responsible for the entire event, I would
> have had more time to represent Fedora solely, and Frank Turner of
> Cabrillo GLUG helped at the table (Frank also did the signage and
> professional-looking CD stickers for Fedora 9 Live CDs). While we
> handed out a significant number of live CDs -- 20-30 by my estimation
> -- I don't think any of the
> computers that left the building on Sunday or Tuesday had Fedora on them.
>
> On Tuesday 7/15, about 50-75 people showed up to check out GNU/Linux,
> and with it being more low-key, I was able to talk about Fedora more
> with folks who attended, giving away a significant number of live CDs.
> The tone was pretty much the same: We've had enough of Windows -- we
> want a change. Another 10-15 people left with GNU/Linux on mostly
> laptops, but at least two desktops were converted.
>
> Again, one of the things about this project that is very surprising is
> that people more fed up with Windows than I had thought, to the point
> where they don't even want to consider dual-booting or just trying
> Linux from a live CD -- many people during those two days wanted to
> "get this s**t off my machine" and install Linux straight away and
> have it solely as their operating system.
>
> At final count -- those who converted on site and those who contacted
> me to say they converted -- there were 28 converts to GNU/Linux and
> FOSS. Of these, two had trouble with their new OS: One fellow hosed
> his grub while tweaking it, and that required a house call to fix (and
> specific instructions NOT to go under the hood until he learns more
> about the system, which he promises to do), and the second had
> problems during her install on Tuesday and, from what I hear (I can't
> reach her directly, so I'm getting this second-hand), she may go back
> to Windows.
>
> As for the project itself, it is moving about 6 miles north to Boulder
> Creek, California, and requests have been made for a town near
> Portland, Ore., and others.
>
> Larry Cafiero
>
>
> 2008/7/30 Karsten 'quaid' Wade <kwade at redhat.com>:
>> I missed the first few events, so will rely upon Larry put something
>> together on those.  This is my report from the final Lindependence 2008
>> day on Saturday 26 July.
>>
>> The event was held in a church hall in the town of Felton, as part of
>> the effort of teaching and transforming a small town to using FLOSS:
>>
>> http://www.lindependence.net/
>>
>> I set up a table for Fedora, with banner, posters, and two laptops.  I
>> spent a chunk of my time trying to get a live USB to work; there is
>> either a problem with the batch of USB keys I have, or my T41 laptop was
>> messing it up.  From all of that I was able to show a few Fedora
>> features, mainly the live USB capabilities.
>>
>> Over the course of the day, there seemed to be up to several dozen
>> people there, including a documentary film maker[1], and several kids.
>> One of them, a 12 year-old boy, was a full-on Mandriva freak.  Whatever
>> they do for him, Mandriva has earned a good proponent. :)
>>
>> As an installfest, this event was not highly successful, in that people
>> brought questions instead of machines to install. :(  Of the questions
>> about existing or upcoming Linux installs, the majority of discussion
>> went to Ubuntu.  There was one person who came late-ish to represent
>> Ubuntu, he was quite knowledgeable about Fedora as well.  I added his
>> Ubuntu ISO to mine for an install server, but no one ended up using it.
>>
>> As an education event with an equal or greater focus on moving people
>> along toward freedom and open source, it was a fair success.  For
>> example, I talked extensively with a person from a small ISV interested
>> in being in Fedora.  I also explained open source, business models, etc.
>> Across the series of events (three separate days, iirc), up to one
>> hundred people came in contact with the FLOSS advocates at the event.
>> That is a sizeable % of the town population, and word of mouth seemed to
>> be in effect.
>>
>> Outcomes from this (series of) event(s):
>>
>> * The forming of a new G/LUG in Felton
>> * Another Lindependence in Boulder Creek
>> * Potentially another Lindependence in a town in Oregon
>>
>> What interests me about this methodology is the focus on small,
>> relatively insular communities that have a higher than average number of
>> people passionate about freedom.
>>
>> So far I've spent about $50 of the $500 budgeted to me for this event
>> series.  That was used for making three vinyl banners of 'infinity',
>> 'freedom', and 'voice' that are joining the (Western reagion) event kit.
>>
>> Larry and I thought it was a good idea to save the rest of the budget to
>> support the Lindependence event in Boulder Creek.  We'll get a Fedora
>> sponsorship for that, and I'm planning to give a general FLOSS talk at
>> one of those events, as well as providing installfest support.
>>
>> - Karsten
>>
>> [1] http://www.digitaltippingpoint.com/
>> --
>> Karsten Wade, Sr. Developer Community Mgr.
>> Dev Fu : http://developer.redhatmagazine.com
>> Fedora : http://quaid.fedorapeople.org
>> gpg key : AD0E0C41
>>
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>>
>>
>
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Thank you for both the reports, they are impressive!

Regards

Francesco Ugolini