[Fsf-friends] FSFI@LA2006 - Participation Report

[Raj Shekhar]

in infinite wisdom Amol Hatwar spoke thus  On 02/15/2006 03:28 AM:
> Disclaimer: These are my opinions and doesn't reflect that of FSF in
> particular. Also, this was my first time at Linux Asia 2006, so I am not
> aware of tradition and expectations towards the event.

LA has always been a marketing event. Did you count the number of people 
who gave their presentations on powerpoint ?  I was there in 2004 and I 
had given up any hopes of anything good ever coming out of that event. 
Even in 2004, they gave ILUGD a stall that was cut off from the main 
area.  From what I remember - the main area is reserved for the sponsors.

> 
> Besides that, our stall was an easy target for freebie mongers. There
> was a small card that was circulated with stall numbers on it. Get it
> signed/stamped at at least 15 stalls and get a freebie. Guess what?
> Stalls in the Org mela had no stall numbers at all! They weren't fetured
> on the stall directory or the stall map.

I am sure the stalls in the main area were the ones featured on that 
card.  If I were to guess (from my experiences of last year), the stalls 
featured would be Novell, Intel, IBM, HP, RedHat.

> 
> General visitors to the stall included young students who wanted to do
> something on Linux but had no idea what; and middle-aged to old managers
> who knew that Linux runs somewhere in their organization but no idea of
> exactly where. I'd say 95% of people that came fell into these
> categories easily. People who knew about FSF was quite surprised to find
> an FSF stall. These guys got the GNU sticker.

The main purpose of that event is to attract marketing, not hackers. 
Maybe FSF.in needs to tailor its message to that end ?


> We were expecting Bhaisampayan to come and talk on Django. His last
> minute ditch wasn't going to go down well. 

OTOH, see the benefits.  The audience were saved from going over to the 
Dark Side ;-) . Did you use the slot to preach about PHP5 to the heathens ?


> 2. http://www.cartoonsoft.com/gallery/linuxasia06/272_7273 (Me, Sameer,
> Vinod and Milind)

Why are you wearing a tie ?


-- 
          _.-,               raj shekhar
     .--'  '-._           http://rajshekhar.net
  _/`-  _      '.       http://rajshekhar.net/blog
'----'._`.----. \
           `     \;  WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE
                 ;_\    -- God's Last Message to his Creation