Hi Kanti & Arun!
On Sun, 2004-09-05 at 10:04 +0530, Arun M wrote:
I would like to plan to put a stall for FSF India in Bangalore in LB/2004 . Am not aware of the receptiveness of this but yeah , i do want to see this happen.Let me know of the intricacies as you all see.
Hi Kanti,
If few of the list members can participate that will be good. I can send the posters and other materials.
LB/2004 would be a great idea. However, I don't know if the organisers will "allow".
We'd participated in LB/2003 last year. And had asked Jessica Prabhakar about putting up some Free Software related posters around the conference venue. She replied that LB was more of an "open source" event and "free software" did not really fit into the context.
However, I don't think there should be a problem if someone "buys" a stall and uses it to promote Free Software and create awareness about GNU.
I'm personally willing to help out in this endeavour. Our plan of action could be:
1. Post a message to the LB/2004 mailing list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linux-bangalore-2004/) and ask if BLUG will be willing to "donate" a stall which FSUG-Bangalore & FSF-India could use to talk about Free Software. This could be done as soon as registration for stalls and talks starts.
2. Based on the feedback of the organisers, we could either use a free stall from them (if they offer one to FSF-I) or find a way to pay for a stall on our own.
3. Ppropose talks on Free Software. If selected (and the selection process is not entirely transparent) that could serve as an additional input.
Resources we will have to work out will be:
1. Funds for posters & handouts 2. Funds for the stall (if we don't get it from the organisers)* 3. Volunteers for manning the stall
* This would have to be known very early on since if funds need to be arranged that would take time as well.
On similar lines, how about doing something similar for IT.COM '04. According to a press release from CXINDIA, these are the conference tracks this time:
ICMT for development Knowledge & Outsourcing summit Software, Gaming & Animation Technology summit Industry Verticals
I think we can volunteer for some of these conferences. Additionally, can also try to work out some sort of deal with the organisers to give FSF-I a small 2mt x 2mt stall (similar to the stalls that WeP had last time) in every pavillion in the event, that would be the best way to present a comprehensive face of Free Software to those interested in technology in Bangalore.
Regards, Abhas.