Hi,
I just decided to put down some ideas that have been floating around in
brain for a while - Mainly on how to push Linux a little more into the
limelight, in the Indian Context. I suppost this would be most suitable
for linux-india-general.
IT-Asia, or IT-India as it was called last year, is probably the
biggest IT fair in India. IMHO, it's also the best possible place for
Linux to break out of its somewhat undercover existence, and into the
limelight. Sure the corporate bigwigs have seen the regular Linux
articles on CNN, News.com and the rest. Maybe even flipped through a few
pages on Linux in a magazine - but how many would have actually stopped
to consider Linux as a viable business proposition - either for use in
their company, or perhaps even as a target platform for development ? I
don't believe that anyone would seriously consider Linux as a viable
business proposition unless and until they saw it performing in front of
them. That's also generally a good time to slap them in the face with
all the obvious advantages (Speed, reliability, bug fixing, flexibility,
TCO, blah blah blah.)
Coming back to IT-Asia.
IT-Asia would be the ideal event to showcase Linux's strength's - built
upon an entirely volunteer-based effort, with (hopefully) corporate
sponsors. Everyone wants to be seen supporting Linux these days, so I
don't imagine that will be too hard. If you're wondering why I'm
bringing up an event still 8 months away, it's because a volunteer based
Linux stall would be an enormous logistical task - especially if the aim
is to put on a display capable of drawing attention.
A brief of what I'd like to see there -
1) Linux boxen of every configuration under the sun (Including Sun
machines ;)).
I'd love to see the look of amazement when a person sees a PC, Mac,
Alpha, UltraSparc, and maybe even a palmpilot all sitting in a row,
running Linux. Hmm.. I know a guy who has tons of those scrumptious SGI
workstations too....... ;)
Lots of laptops would be nice - just to demonstrate the good stuff.
2) Linux Boxen running things like major databases - I won't name any,
we all know what they are. Heavyweight apps like SAP R/3 etc. It wuld be
great to setup an intranet showcasing linux's capabilities. I dunno how
to go about that...
3) Lots of desktop apps - flashy window managers, KDE, GNOME the works.
(I know that is not what sells linux, and probably won't for a while,
but I think Enlightenment is capable of drawing a crowd by itself.)
4) If there's enough excitement about the whole concept, maybe some
engg. students can band together a little beowulf cluster.
5) Lots of people, lots of excitement. Lots of application demos,
installation demos, games, demos of networking tools, security tools,
remote admin tools. it's time to show people WHY Linux is actually
EASIER to use - without any screwy GUI's.
6) Free T-Shirts, Free CD's.
7) Most importantly - enthusiasm. Nothing is as infectious as
enthusiasm.
I realise that this is probably a tall order. We would need a lot of
hardware - luckily s/w is not too much of a problem in the linux camp
;). We'd also need sponsors, individual contributions etc. Most
importantly, we would need vounteers to give their time. Not just to set
things up, but to to speak to the right people, arrange for sponsors and
hardware etc.
This post is just a feeler. If you guys think there is a realistic
possibilty of anything like this ever taking place - please air your
views.
nikk
--
Cure the disease and kill the patient.
-- Francis Bacon
