[Debian-uk] Re: Expo aftermath

[Wookey]

On Fri 11 Oct, Martin Schulze wrote:
> Somebody around who would like to write a summary for www.debian.org/events/?

As this hasn't happened yet I'd better have a go. (Can be a belated DWN
item too).

This version is for review byt those there - it needs some names filling
in.

-----
The well-oiled Debian-uk machine rolled into action again for this year's
Linux Expo in London. Phil Hands ably negotiated the .org section with the
organisers and was vaguely in charge of the Debian effort too. The turnout
of developers was excellent and we by far the best-manned stand in the
whole exhibition, as well as being probably the most-attended stand.
Charles Briscoe provided an on-demand CD production system for the more
obscure CD sets so we could blow and print CDs for anything people needed.
Wookey and his lard-powered van provided transport of machines, monitors
CDs and beer there and back. CDs/DVDs of Debian-i386 and Knoppix were
kindly provided by John Winters of the LinuxEmporium on sale-or-return.

The trend of recent years continued with a large Debian-arm contingent
showing off interesting devices and entertaining the crowds. Debian-NetBSD
were represented and the rest of the team answered questions about Debian
and free-software, and sold CDs, DVDs and T-shirts. A lot of people got
top-notch technical advice on a range of problems, and enjoyed the
experience of no-one trying to sell them anything for a few minutes.

To illustrate the difference between 'free as in beer' and 'free as in
freedom' free beer was handed out to people whilst selling them the
software. A couple of grands-worth of stuff for sold, making a profit for
Debian of around 800 pounds.

The things demonstrated were:
* Debian-i386 in various guises, on various machines (of course)
* Knoppix - live-cd 'instant Debian' for easily trying out the one true OS
* Debian-NetBSD running on Matthew Garrett's laptop.
* The Debian-arm corner:
  * <Andrew Cater's mate> attempting a live Risc-PC (install (with some, if not
    complete, success) 
  * A host of funky arm-based devices runnig Debian or derivatives
    (Psion5mx, ipaq, LART, RiscPC).
  * Nick Bane, demonstrating a new open-hardware ARM platform - 'Balloon'
    which could speak about 8 languages using 3 different synethesisers.
    This generated a lot of interest, showing what you can do with
    Debian/familiar on an embedded device and got us a mention on ZDNet. 

Other developers who helped out were: Jonathan McDowell, Paul Hedderly,
Paul Sladen, Andrew Cater, ?<help - I don't know your name - very nice
helpful mild mannered fellow>, David Pashley (being the KDE stand), more?

Phil Hands also gave a talk on Debian and free-software to the assembled
multitude of suits, which hopefuly expanded their minds a little, and in one
of the discussion forums he gave a Sun executive a good ranting-at for
describing Staroffice as 'free software', which earned him a cheer.

Overall the Expo was a sucess for Debian, getting us some exposure to the
real public, and making useful profits. It's quite hard work but worth
doing. However the Expo itself was a pale shadow of itself in the 'Linux
boom' years with a fairly paltry showing of stands. Debian was the only
big-name distribution represented and a number of attendees reckoned there
wasn't a great deal else of interest, although I thought Apple's MacosX
desktop demos were rather snazzy.

Wookey
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