David A. Harding
Tuesday, 01 May 2007
For the third consecutive year, I helped the Linux User's Group in Princeton (LUG/IP) staff a table at the Trenton Computer Festival (TCF). The festival, which ran last Saturday and Sunday (28 & 29 April 2007), was both personally rewarding and emotionally wearing. I feel rewarded for having represented free software, and in particular, a group of free software users (LUG/IP) to other hobbyists. I feel worn out for having talked to over 100 strangers: I'm pretty shy and I usually try to avoid even making eye contact with strangers.
We were sparse with table decorations this year. For the past two years, we've setup at least one demonstration computer and offered flyers and Live CDs at no charge. This year we had an extra set of flyers, Ubuntu Live/Install CDs, and Fedora Install CDs, but no demonstration computers. That didn't seem to affect traffic, or CD consumption, and maybe it encouraged people to move along faster. One of the toughest parts of staffing the GNU+Linux booth is trying to end a conversation with somebody keen on talking about technologies that were dead before I was born.
TCF is dying, I think. There were, by my estimate, only half as many attendees this year as there were two years ago. Also, it seems most of the teaching sessions were the same sessions as last year run by the same salesmen as last year. That said, I know John LeMasney gave a fresh talk on podcasting using free software in the opening session Saturday. I was also happy to see the Local Ubuntu Community staffing a table of their own and attracting an sizable crowd. Joe Terranova blogged about the goings on at the Ubuntu table.
I barely left the table the entire weekend, and I can guesstimate some statistics based on what I recall. (Statistics from my 2005 TCF report are in parentheses.) About 200 people stopped by the table (``I guesstimate 300+ ... came up to the tables''). We gave out about 200 CDs, but many people took more than one (``~150 walked away with ... [a] CD''). Every single person had heard of ``Linux.'' About 60% of them have tried it. About 5% said they used it at work. About 10% were experienced with GNU+Linux; while 20% used GNU+Linux but didn't feel experienced. We asked most people if they were from the area (Trenton/Princeton) and most people weren't: a surprisingly (to me) large number (maybe 20%) were from New York state.
My primary companion for greeting visitors to the table was Daniel Zuckerman. I thank Daniel for keeping me company, for keeping me honest, and for picking up the slack when I wore down. I also thank the LUG/IP officers for all of the behind-the-scenes work I know they did to make the event possible.
For next year, I'd like to organise a team of people to speak about free software related topics (Ubuntu, GNU+Linux on laptops, LAMP, etc...). Please contact me if your interested.