Good Morning, Everyone!

On 17:03, Wed 06 Sep 06, പ്രവീണ്‍‌|Praveen wrote:

Location: St. Joseph college, Langford Road, Shanthinagar Agenda: Finalise the plans for Software Freedom Day

I would say we had a very productive and energetic meeting yesterday! Here is what we decided:

1. The major theme for 'Software Freedom Day' this year in Bangalore is to reach out and increase awareness about Free Software.

2. The idea is to make some banners and print some phamphlets. The banner will be cloth banner and will serve to attract attention. The banner will be put up at a small table manned by volunteers. The idea is to have a presence in as many places around the city that we can find volunteers for. This includes schools, colleges, offices, public spaces, gardens and malls.

Volunteers would man the booths and provide visitors information about Free Software and will highlight why its important for everyone to be aware of and demand Software Freedom.

The phamlets will be bi-lingual in English and Kannada and will be printed in large numbers to distribute to onlookers and visitors.

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Q:: How many booths of this sort should we have?

A:: I'd say we should have as many as we can have volunteers for. So if you feel that you can convince your office / building / school / college to allow you to put up a banner and a table at the entrance, please do feel free to volunteer to participate in SFD.

We should be able to freeze on the number of booths by Monday so that orders can be placed for banners and phamlets.

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Q:: What sort of content are we going to have on the banner and phamlets?

A:: The banner should be something provocative that will make people curious and make them come to the booth to ask for information. The phamlets will be two-sided and will provide URLs and basic information about Free Software.

Over the weekend, we need to develo some drafts of the banner and phamlet content. Once we have frozen on the phamlet content in English, one of us needs to translate it into Kannada as well.

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Q:: What sort of skills would volunteers need to have?

A:: Oh well - nothing in particular. We would need people who're already aware about Free Software & GNU, who can communicate these values and issues accurately, who're passionate about and interested in reaching out to more people to increase Free Software awareness and who don't mind putting in some time on the 16th (next Saturday) for handling these booths.

Volunteers would have to get permission from the concerned authorities of the place they are planning to put up a stall.

To ensure that we are all able to present ourselves in the same way, all of us who're volunteering to participate in this event will meeting up on the 14th. That way everyone can get to meet up and know each other while also gearing up for the event in the best possible manner.

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Q:: What activities should be held at the booths?

A:: 1. Introduce people to the concepts of Software Freedom 2. Clear their misconcepts about what is Free / Open Source Software 3. Make people understand the value of Freedom and how it is easy to lose it if we are not aware of our rights etc. 4. Sell FSF-I posters, badges, stickers 5. Note down the contact information of visitors if they are willing to share it (phone number or email address or URL). We can subsequently keep them informed of other activities in Bangalore.

There could be instances where there could be some hostility and tension at a booth. Volunteers will just have to be patient and consistent in their approach and talk.

IMHO, opposition to these values or misunderstanding about them is not a big problem as long as people are willing to improve their understanding through debate. Our endeavour should be to press our point gently but firmly.

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Q:: What other resources / equipment would be required?

A:: If you can provision for a computer at your booth to demonstrate a GNU/Linux system or even a localised desktop etc., then please do that. But this is not an absolute must at all booths. The prime objective is to reach out - live demos will be a wonderful accessory but not a requirement.

If there are enough people interested in subsequent activity like an Install Fest or would like to buy CDs or see demos, we can make a note of their request. When we meet up after the event, we can take stock of this demand and plan other relevant activities to build up on these.

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Hope this clarifies our goals and roadmap for activity. Please do come forward to volunteer, if you can. If you can support this initiative in any other way, we would be more than glad.

Cheers, Abhas.