Some thoughts...

4) Give out cards or flyers with contact & meeting info for LUGs in the 
region, URLs for resources such as Linux.org. The idea is give 
encouragement for

5) Present some examples of how Linux has been successfully used in the 
workplaces and its payoff in reliability and economy.

6) Maybe have a sheet and/or presentation on how to co-exist with the need 
to handle Excel spreadsheets, Word docs, etc. (or why you are not locked 
into Windows to deal with those who are).

7) Optional: The Linux Matchmaker -- Q&A for matching people's needs with 
various distros and packages. This can people acting as adivisors or it can 
be presentation or handout with common scenarios: gamer, home user, small 
office, e-commerce, graphic designer, etc.

For books in a drawing, I'd recommend inclusion of the User Friendly comic 
strip books from O'Reilley. Even though they don't deal with the tech 
how-to, they are a nice cultural intro to open source mindset.

Some things to steer away form at TCF 2002 or similar general venues:

* heavy duty bashing of you know what. Yes, "In a World Without Fences, 
There's No Need for Gates" <g> and gentle <nudge><nudge> prodding if fine, 
but heavy ripping into MS and all that can backfire. It can make Linux 
supporters look like whiners and bad sports (like a certain vendor <g>) 
There are venues for a knock down fight but at TCF, it can also rankle the 
vendors at the show without gaining much for Linux and open source.

* (This is maybe more for me than for others in HamLUG), the strong hint 
that Linux is great tool for bypassing many restrictions and covert 
routines being slipped into closed source products. Better to state this in 
the positive: open source lets everybody know what goes into the system. No 
hidden additives or fillers. <g> Why this caution? Some advocates of closed 
source proprietary software are likely to try to make Linux users look like 
anti-social anarchists out to destroy businesses. push Mom into her apple 
pie, and stampede the cattle. <g>

* A minor point but still important to keep clear: open source doesn't 
always mean totally free of costs. Most of the time, there is no financial 
cost. But some software for Linux has a price tag. (E.g.; the Maya software 
for Linux used recently for many movie special effects carries a hefty 
price tag but is a bargain for what it does in comparison with anything 
else that does the same.) One of the great things about Linux is that there 
are decent choices and alternatives.


At 11:19 PM 1/18/02 -0500, Jeffrey Yep wrote:
 > 1) Offer installation help
 > 2) Drawings for set of Linux-related books and CDs
 > 3) Give freebies such as different Linux flavor OS CDs, stickers etc.
 >
 > Please addon to the list............


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