Business-to-Linux event (Was- A group statement on SCO's actions)

[Matthew Frederico]

I have heard the McKay events center (UVSC) rents out for around $800 /
Night + Insurance costs.  I am sure we could contact UVSC and find out
if they would give us a discounted rate for being ".org".  If we can get
about 20 people to pitch in $50, we could easaly hold a convention or
seminar of some type there.  

We'd need to get a skill set assessment of people to set up booths for
PostGres, JBoss, Kylix, Open Office etc.  So if we are serious it looks
like 5 things have to happen:

1) Start a shelter LLC to lower risk exposure
2) Gather money - escrow? -
3) Rent (center of choice) for sometime in the future
4) Round up the troops
	4a) Each trooper builds a presentation
	4b) Each trooper devotes 16+ hours to it
5) Send letters to local businesses (get a list from the .gov)



On Thu, 2003-05-22 at 13:23, Ryan Winkler wrote:
> I like it.  Count me in :)
> 
> I wonder how large of a place would be necessary to hold such an event.  
> Could it be held in a high school gym or maybe somewhere at BYU or UVSC or 
> the U?  We'd need to make it large enough to be worth the businesses' time 
> to come out.  Probably little demo booths of different stuff.  M$ Office 
> replacements in booth A, MySQL in booth B, Apache web technologies in booth 
> C, Linux distributions in booths D-G, JBoss in booth E, PostGRESQL in booth 
> F... etc.  We could possibly even get sponsors to do something.  And nobody 
> tell SCO.
> 
> Sounds like fun... and probably qualifies as enough of a geek event to get 
> t-shirts printed :)  After all, it's all about the t-shirts.
> 
> >I think this would be a great idea and I would definitely volunteer my time 
> >to help organize an event like this. I do think for it to be done right 
> >though,  it will take a lot of time and planning. We might want to consider 
> >doing it as a joint effort with the SLC-LUG to involve a wider market and 
> >more businesses. I think this would be smart in order to get alot of 
> >involvement to make this a success.
> >    If anyone else is serious about this, we need to set a target date, 
> >time and place. When inviting the local businesses I think it would be 
> >important to get some kind of information as to what applications or 
> >services each business currently uses so that we can target specific needs. 
> >We can even invite representatives from some of the Linux distros or other 
> >Linux friendly software organizations, such as OpenOffice.org. Maybe I'm 
> >getting a little carried away and maybe this is alittle more invovled then 
> >what Bill was envisioning, but I think as a LUG we can make a great impact 
> >in the community and this might be something that can be very beneficial.  
> >I see it almost as  a mini-convention for business-to-Linux event.  Who 
> >knows if this is a big enough of a success we might set a trend for other 
> >LUGs to follow suit. If Linux is to reach it's fullest potential and full 
> >support (i.e. from hardware and software organizations) it's not going to 
> >come from a corporation like IBM or some of the many others who carefully 
> >tread the surface of Linux-ism half-heartly. Linux was built by the 
> >community and if it is to grow and be supported and taken seriously, it 
> >will have to invovle the community as well, doing an event like this for 
> >the simple fact that no one else will. Many organizations see Linux as a 
> >risk with a potential loss, where we (the community) really don't have much 
> >to loose. We've embraced Linux and we know what it can do. We know what it 
> >can do for businesses and schools. This can be our opportunity to really do 
> >something to help others instead of meeting once a month and discussing vi 
> >or perl programming tips (now I'm not saying those things don't have there 
> >place and aren't useful). I'm just saying I think that our LUG can be more 
> >active in promoting Linux. I know it probably sounds like I've been 
> >watching to many "hackers-unite-and-take-over-the-world" movies, and maybe 
> >I have, but I still think this is a good idea.
> >    Please let me know if I'm completely off my rocker or if this is 
> >legitiment proposal and something we can do and put together?
> >Thanks,
> >Jared
> >
> >
> >.===================================.
> >| This has been a P.L.U.G. mailing. |
> >|      Don't Fear the Penguin.      |
> >`==================================='
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*  
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
> 
> .===================================.
> | This has been a P.L.U.G. mailing. |
> |      Don't Fear the Penguin.      |
> `==================================='
> 
> 
-- 
Matthew Frederico
Unwired Networks
mfrederico at unplugthewire.com
http://www.unwirednetworks.com
--