[vox-outreach] GTC & WEF 2007

Mon Mar 26 00:44:25 PDT 2007

On Sun, Mar 25, 2007 at 11:20:41AM -0700, Subramaniyam Pooni wrote:
> Thanks Siva/Govind for a wonderful introduction. 

Hi Subramaniyam, nice to meet you!  I'm Cc'ing this to both LUGOD's
public volunteer coordination mailing list ("vox-outreach") and our
private officer mailing list ("vox-officers").  I encourage you to sign up
for "vox-outreach", and respond to this there. :^)

> Bill,
> Let me introduce myself. I am Subramaniyam Pooni and 
> I have fourteen years of experience in the software
> industry developing Application/System Software, of
> which the last ten years were primarily focussed on
> the Design and Development of Storage Software. I have
> extensive experience on Linux and Embedded Systems.

Well, first off, you sound like a fine candidate to do a presentation
at LUGOD some day! ;^)  Do let me know if you're interested, as I'm LUGOD's
speaker coordinator.  But, back to the business at hand...

<snip>
> I am very much interested in representing LUGOD at the
> booth during GTCWest & Whole Earth Festival. Please
> let me know if you are interested in talking to me.
> BTW, I would be out of the country the next two weeks
> as I am going on a trip to India. So I will available
> either today or after april 13th.

LUGOD attended GTC in 2003 and 2004.  We have some photos of our booth
from 2003 here:

  http://www.lugod.org/photos/2003.05.14/

and 2004 here:

  http://www.lugod.org/photos/2004.05.13/

I didn't get to attend in 2004, but a few of the people who did were
kind enough to write some 'reports' on what happened each day:

  http://www.lugod.org/mailinglists/archives/vox/2004-05/msg00056.html
  http://www.lugod.org/mailinglists/archives/vox-outreach/2004-05/msg00077.html
  http://www.lugod.org/mailinglists/archives/vox/2004-05/msg00083.html

There is some information on the 2004 event here:

  http://www.lugod.org/projects/gtc/2004/

and the general page about our appearance at GTC is here:

  http://www.lugod.org/projects/gtc/

I'll soon be updating that page to mention our likely presence at this year's
event, and will do my best to help post coordination information
(e.g., a list of who can come, and when; what things we'll need, and have;
etc.)

The best place to _discuss_ these issues, though, is LUGOD's "vox-outreach"
mailing list.  LUGOD members who are interested in helping with events like
this, and who have done so in the past, are already subscribed to that list,
so once a discussion gets going, they're sure to speak up.

This also keeps everyone in the loop, without the need to Cc dozens of
people at the same time.  Plus, the list is publically archived, so people
can see what's been discussed and refer to it, if needed.

(In fact, poking around the April/May 2003 and 2004 archives of vox-outreach
may be a good way to see what was happening, planning-wise, for our
presence at those two events.)

To summarize, our main goal is to spread the word about Linux and Open Source,
and we do that by:

  * Having a demo PC running a Linux desktop for people to look at and touch
  * Having informative hand-outs for people to take with them and look at
    after the show
  * Having CDROMs of Linux (live CDs like Knoppix) and Open Source
    (e.g., TheOpenCD collection of OSS for Win32) for people to test-drive
  * Having warm bodies there to answer questions about OSS and Linux

That's really about it!

LUGOD has a small form-factor PC for demoing Linux, and a flat-panel LCD
monitor to go with it.  We also have a very large laminated LUGOD sign
(which you'll see in some of the photos linked-to above for GTC, and
later in this email for WEF.)

I'm not sure of the demo PC's current status (what distro it's running,
how well it's set-up, etc.), nor of who currently has the hardware.
We should probably do a fresh install (say, Kubuntu? ;^) )

No doubt one of the elected officers will know, which is why I'm Cc'ing
the officers list... hopefully one of them can answer this question.

LUGOD members have, in the past, been happy to whip together CDROMs.
Some companies have also helped, with more professionally-burned discs.
(Z-World burned a large collection of Linux 2.4 kernel CDs for us back
when 2.4.0 was first released, for example.
Photo: http://www.lugod.org/photos/2001.01.15/lugod-001.jpg )

These days, it may be easier to simply contact Canonical and see if
they'd be willing to ship us a collection of Ubuntu and TheOpenCDs,
which they offer (older versions of) for free:

  https://shipit.ubuntu.com/

This page, specifically:

  https://shipit.ubuntu.com/login

We'll want to find someone who has time to put together a small collection
of hand-out documents, and then I'm _guessing_ LUGOD's treasury can afford
to pay for a few hundred photo copies.  Henry House, LUGOD's treasurer
(and president, FYI), would be able to confirm that.

Typical hand-outs include:

  * Who is LUGOD?  (club info, boasting about our past, calendar of our future)
  * What is Open Source and Linux?  (and why would you care?)

As for Whole Earth Festival, much of the above applies.  WEF is the weekend
immediately prior to GTC (Fri May 11 afternoon, and Sat/Sun May 12/13,
all-day).  For that event, we'll need a bit more, like a table and chairs,
and maybe a tent.

Relevant links to past LUGOD WEF presences:

2002:
  http://www.lugod.org/projects/wef/2002/
  http://www.lugod.org/photos/2002.05.10/

2003:
  http://www.lugod.org/projects/wef/2003/
  http://www.lugod.org/photos/2003.05.09/

2004:
  http://www.lugod.org/projects/wef/2004/
  http://www.lugod.org/photos/2004.05.09/

2005:
  http://www.lugod.org/projects/wef/2005/
  http://www.lugod.org/photos/2005.05.07/

Anyway -- whew!  Time for me to get to bed soon!  Thanks so much for
offering to help!  I've posted a newsitem to LUGOD's front page regarding
our probable presence at GTC.

Application deadline for WEF is April 1st, BTW!

  http://wef.ucdavis.edu/education2006.html

-bill!
pr at lugod.org