Hello all. I want to apologize for the total silence from me
on this mailing list since the project was announced. I sort of
announced a little too early as I was in the middle of travelling
to various places(E3 & LinuxExpo) when everyone started subscribing.
The response so far to this project has been fairly good. We've got
about 65 people on this list, and 12 LUGs signed up. I've gotten a lot of
email asking me questions about this project, so I'm going to answer
as many of them as I can. Please note that everything here is my opinion
and is in no way set in stone, so please comment away.
In addition to the q/a, I will also give an outline of what I
see as all that needs to happen between now and sept. 12th to pull
this off.
This message is divided into four sections:
o FAQs
o To Do List
o Coordinators Wanted
o Time Frame
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FAQS...kind of...just my opinions only at the moment...please comment
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1. Who is the Intended Audience?
When I originally came up with this idea, the target audience for the
demos that I had in mind was the desktop user and small business owner.
This is not set in stone, but I have some reasons for this. The main
reason is that if you are a system administrator, you probably already
have some exposure to Linux through all the coverage it has gotten in
trade publications. Desktop users who don't read industry publications
such as Network, C|Net, IEEE publications, etc, have either just heard
about Linux through CNN or never heard of it. These are the people who
need to see Linux and "ooh and aah" at it than go back to their IT
departements and ask whether Linux will ever be supported. Linux has
already made it's mark in the world of the back office, and trends show
that it will only keep increasing it's share in this segment. Every
system administrator I know is looking into whether Linux is a viable
alternative for their company.
The desktop, on the other hand, is where Linux still has a long way to
go. I personally see the best way for Linux to grow on the desktop
to be by the end users pushing for Linux, not by IT forcing users to
switch from Windows . If more people know about Linux
and the fact that they will never again have to see the Blue Screen of
Death, more of them might start bugging their sysadmins to support
it on their desktop. The other class of user that I had thought about
targetting was small business owners. For someone who owns a small
business, NT is monstrosity due to it's licensing costs, so showing them
that Linux can do everything NT can(and more) for much lower cost is a
great way to get them to seriousl think about switching.
Like I said, this is not set in stone, but is just my view of what the
target audience should be. What each LUG really has to ask itself is
what sort of people will see their demonstration? If you setup in the
middle of a mall or outside CompUSA, you want to target desktop users,
b/c that's what the majority of the population is. If on the other hand,
you're going to be in the middle of the chemistry building @ MIT, you
would probably focus on things like beowulf and visualization apps.
2. Will There be an Official List of Apps for LUGs to Demo?
Yes and No. Trying to agree on what software to demo would probably
end up breaking down into a KDE vs Gnome or Applix vs. StarOffice
holy war and would be completely counter productive. IMHO, demo whatever
you have access to and have experience with. If you have access to enough
machines and enough people manning your demo, show off multiple
apps/environments and let the people decide what they prefer.
While there won't be an official list of applications LUGs must demo,
we should provide a list of types of applications and various examples
of each type. This would give each LUG a good starting point.
This has already been mentioned here several times, and I think we
should definetely do something like this.
- Desktop/Home User User
* Office Productivity(mail,web,news,word proc., spreadsheet, etc)
* Multimedia (cd player, mp3, video4linux, etc)
* Games (quake, civ:ctp, emulators, etc)
* any thing else you can think off
- Small business owners
* Using Linux as a file/mail/print/web server/gateway/etc.
* Samba connectivity
* Office productivity - specially spreadsheets/small database
* Inventory/accounting/business management software
* any thing else you can think off
- Other types of computer users...
3. What day will Linux Demo Day take place?
I'm trying to decide if we should setup a single day for everyone to
participate or if we should just say that it should happen during
the week of the 12th. I think if we give it a somewhat open time
frame, it will allow more LUGs to participate. Also, the Sep. 12th
date was just picked by b/c it's Linux's birthday. It does not have
to be so. If it seems like there are too many things to get done
between now and september, maybe we should do it on a later date?
Anyone know the release date for Win98 Special Edition? ;)
4. Where are you located, who do you work for?
I'm in the US :) I work for a large corporation that will remain
unnamed for now simply b/c if they knew about this, I'd probably be
politely asked to stop working on it.
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To Do List
------------------------------------------------------------------------
OK, with those questions out of the way, here's a high level todo list
as of today. I'm sure this will grow once I get everyone's comments :)
1. Get Web Page "Finished" - Me
The web page is only partially functional at the moment. I still
need to add support for editing LUG entries, and getting the mailing
list archive online. I also need to update the about page, and
just do some general clean up. I'm no longer travelling, so should
have all this done in the next week. Any suggestions about the
web page layout are welcome.
2. Get web site moved to a real ISP. Currently this thing is in my
apt on a shared frame relay connection with my whole complex. VA
Research agreed to host it, but they are so busy these days that I
doubt I'll hear from them in a long time. Anyone here associated
with an ISP that would be willing to kindly donate some diskspace
on their server to this project? It requires mod_php (php3), mysql,
and server side include support.
3. Determine Demo Days Details - Everyone on this list
This is where the core of the work needs to be done. This includes
the following tasks:
* Demo application list (from above)
* Determine exact date(s) for this
* Get a logo
- I've had several ideas mailed into me. See separate message
- Once we have a logo, advertising, and more involvement, I'll
ping Copyleft about making a t-shirt for people to buy and
wear during the actual demo sessions.
* Write handouts to give out to visitors
- Do we need multiple handouts? One for home users, one for
business owners, etc. I'll send out another message l8r with
my ideas on what the handouts should cover.
* Translate handouts to other languages
- This will happen as LUGs sign up and we get more nationalities
on board.
* Get corporate contacts
- I think it would be great if we could get companies such as
RedHat, Applix, AbiSource, etc. to support this project by
sending out brochures about their products to each participating
LUG. I mean, they must print thousands for all the different
expos they attend, so hopefully at least a few companies would
be willing to help. Before we can start asking for this kind of
support though, we need to have a few more details worked out
so that companies take us seriously. Ideas for what companies
might have interestng software can be found by going to
www.linuxworldexpo.com and looking at their exhibitor
list. I also have the exhibitor list from Linux Expo and can
i know there were a lot of end user software companies there.
* Any other things people can think of...
I'll create a separate announce list so that those who just want
to know when things are decided don't have to read through all
the discussion about the above topics.
4. Advertise
Once we have the details for this project fleshed out a little more,
we need to get as many LUGs involved as possible. I checked on
linux.com and there are ~600 LUGs registered, but only 12 participating
in this project at the moment. I see advertising happening in several
ways:
- Tell all your Linux using friends about this
- Banner Ads. Once we have a logo, we can throw together some banner
adds and send them over to Alan Cox, linux.com, and any other sites
that provide free advertising to the Linux community.
- A Press Release? Any good writers on here? It would be great to
get the word out to the mainstream press once we're ready.
- /.
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Coordinators Wanted
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As was mentioned earlier in this list, there are way too many things that
need to be done for just me to organize them, so we should get different
people in charge of different facets of this project. Off the top of my
head I can think of the following positions needing a coordinator.
Web Page:
Maintain main web page and develop scripts as needed. I'll
keep doing this for now.
Suggested Application List:
Need one person to take all the application suggestions
from this list and anywhere else and compile it into a
detailed document explaining what each app does, and where
it can be found, and keep this document updated on the web.
Handout Coordinator:
In charge of keeping track of what languages the handout(s) have
been translated to and keeping this info up to date on the
web page.
Advertising Coordinator:
In charge of getting ads sent to all the appropriate web sites,
contacing CopyLeft about t-shirts, and getting press release(if any)
out to the media.
Corporate Contact:
In charge of contacting Linux companies to try to get any sort
of support they are willing to provide to this project.
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Schedule
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Assuming we stick with the mid-sept. time frame, I think we should try
to have most of the details for this worked out by mid july and start
advertising massively than. This would give LUGs about two month time
period to get everything setup. That should be more than enough
time IMHO.
Well, that's all(!) I have to say for now. Please send all
comments, flames, ideas, etc. to the list so that we can start
discussing this project in detail.
May the source be with you,
Deepak
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