[wplug-board] Software Freedom Day

[Pat Barron]

I keep meaning to call Monroeville Mall to see if we can use a kiosk 
there - though in that environment, I doubt we'd be able to do any 
actual installs (it's not like people are going to bring their gear into 
the mall....), it'd be more of a PR / awareness thing, being able to 
give away distros so people can tinker with them, show them "Big Buck 
Bunny" and such (or other things that were made using Linux that we can 
trot out), etc.  I haven't gotten a chance during the work day so far 
this week, unfortunately.  I'm still sort of at a loss for what other 
venues we might chase after that would have a good amount of "random 
traffic", people who would not otherwise be aware of free software.  
Plus also, the mall (like many other larger venues we might pursue that 
would have a lot of people, I'm sure...) would not have network access 
for us - so people wouldn't really be able to do installs on-site unless 
they were satisfied with whatever comes off of our distribution media 
and did their updates at home (unless someone wanted to bring a MiFi - 
but I don't know who'd volunteer to pay for the data usage that would 
incur).

Not trying to be discouraging of the idea of a "mini-installfest" or 
anything - I just think that a lot of the value of our Software Freedom 
Day activity (whatever it turns out to be) is going to be in catching 
the interest of people who aren't familiar with FOSS at all (which is 
why I think it's helpful to do it in a place where people are already 
gathered for some other reason, like shopping - so Pittsburgh Public 
Market is good on that score, too), so the people we talk to aren't 
going to have their equipment and such with them - they won't have been 
expecting to come across our Software Freedom Day activity, but 
hopefully it'll be a happy coincidence for them. ;-)

What is the actual date you have in mind?

--Pat.