[sf-lug] March 1 St. Anthony's Foundation outreach

Thu Feb 21 00:28:50 PST 2008

hi

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 11:28 PM, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:

> Quoting Christian Einfeldt (einfeldt at gmail.com):
>
> > Correct.  These two events do conflict.  That is why a number of us are
> > trying to drum up excitement, because we are going to need lots of
> > volunteers that day with FOSS skills.
>
> I just wanted to make sure that we were clear on your wish to _divert_
> some of the limited pool of available volunteers,

No, I want to expand the pool by encouraging people to show up who otherwise
would not show up to either.

Also, you should know that Emy Tseng of the Department of Telecommunications
and Information Services (DTIS) for the City and County of San Francisco
(CCSF) was at the last SAF event, and was at publicity meeting tonight for
the next SAF event.  DTIS is the department of CCSF that is responsible for
making IT decisions for CCSF.  In 2003, Brian Behlendorf and Josh Berkus and
Louis Suarez Potts and I met with Willie Brown (then Mayor) and Lewis Loeven
and Rod Loucks to see about getting FOSS pilot programs for CCSF.  Footage
shot after that meeting was the very first footage that we shot for the
Digital Tipping Point film.  The point is that Willie Brown said that he was
not opposed to a FOSS pilot program, and that if Lewis Loeven was okay with
it he (Willie Brown) would not oppose it.

So Rod Loucks reviewed OOo and said that it would be adequate if the CCSF
interdepartmental Committee On Information Technology (COIT) approved it.
We could not get a meeting with COIT, and so the idea died temporarily
there, but this effort with Emy Tseng is an effort to regroup and come back
with FOSS initiatives which CCSF officials will not run away from.  So
getting Emy familiar with it to the point where she is glad that we are
coming back for the next SAF meeting is really important.  We tried going in
front the top, and now we are trying to go in from the bottom.

Here is another important point:  Emy told me tonight at a meeting has said
that she is willing to put a link to the March 1 installfest on the CCSF
DTIS website, because _CCSF sends some of its boxes to ACCRC.org!!!  Isn't
that interesting!!  It is entirely possible that some of the boxes that we
will be installing at the four locations on 3/1/08 will have come from DTIS
!!

> away from the existing
> installfest effort, to the St. Anthony's one you speak of.  One might
> easily have read your initial post's opening ("I would like to encourage
> people to consider signing up for the two March 1 events") as
> recommending doing _both_.

Yes, and since we might find that there is an occasional lull in the KIPP
install site, or if 20 people show up to the KIPP install site, then maybe
it does make sense for a few people to go to the SAF event.  And, at any
rate, the SAF event will be over before the ACCRC - Untangle installfest,
and so people can go from SAF to the KIPP installsite or the ACCRC
installsite, as both are relatively close.

IMHO, if we continue to talk up both events, we should be able to get enough
bodies to cover both.  We only need about 5 people for the SAF event, and I
have several commitments for that event already.  Sure the Untangle - ACCRC
event is really important, but if we find that one or the other of the
installsites is overstaffed, maybe one or two or more could go to the SAF
event.  IMHO, in light of the fact that we have a DTIS staffer interested in
promoting FOSS in a modest way, we should not undersell the SAF event.

> > > Can you point out to me where the Tenderloin event's materials say
> > > anything at all about open source / free software?  I can't seem to
> > > find any such mention, and the bit about "installing and
> > > demonstrating" antivirus software suggests MS-Windows to me.
> >
>
> > Yes, please watch this CNet video....
>
> I'm afraid I do not have any proprietary Macromedia Flash software -- or
> any other proprietary software, actually -- on my machine, so I would
> have difficulty doing that.

What about Gnash?

> Anyhow, thank you for mentioning that it's possible to infiltrate Linux
> into such events.  That's a valid point, and it's A Good Thing to do so.
>

Thanks for that positive feedback.

> My concern was with the way you characterised the event in your earlier
> message:
>
>    Both of these events have common goals:  getting FOSS into the hands
>    of those who need it.
>
> The reason I asked about "where the Tenderloin event's materials say
> anything at all about open source / free software" is that I could find
> no evidence of such a goal in St. Anthony's case -- and you've now
> confirmed that they _have_ no such goals; only certain volunteers such
> as you and Jim have, thus far.

It is a very rare case where I would be able to say that you are incorrect,
Rick, but this is one such rare case.  Having just spoken this evening with
the event coordinators, I can tell you that they are very much interested in
advancing FOSS.  Reliatech (the Windows side) has actually started offering
Linux training as a result of their work in the last 12/15/07 SAF event; I
got that word this evening from the CEO of Reliatech.  He is interested in
expanding their GNU Linux offerings.  Reliatech has a deal with CCSF and
Goodwill to do some refurbishing of boxes, and although they have been
offering only Windows installation and training (through StreetTech), they
are now offering Linux training as well.  Also, one of the event
coordinators, Kami Griffiths, who is on this list, has established a small
Linux lab at the Hayes Valley Computer Center and she personally provides
FOSS training to newbies, and she is very much into offering FOSS as a
choice.  Kari Gray, one of the other main organizers of the SAF event, has
phoned me to pointedly ask me to ask people on this list to please consider
coming to demo FOSS boxes there.  Karl Robillard, the SAF employee who is
coordinating the SAF event for SAF, has likewise requested our presence
there.  Jim Stockford was at this evening's meeting as well, and so I am
sure that he will be able to confirm what I am saying about these things.

So, bottom line, we would like to have people sign up for the event, if
possible, and help us take 5 boxes over to the event on Friday 2/29/08.

See ya.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/attachments/20080221/c82a01ee/attachment-0001.html>