SFD II

[Bill Sconce]

A quick report: tonight was Software Freedom Day II, the first in a
series of planned follow-on presentations from the "real" SFD back
on September 15th.  This one was at Pepperell's Lawrence Library.
A beautiful place, incidentally, and which just happened to be
running a "read a banned book" contest this week.  (Relevant to
free software - or maybe that's just me.)

We had eight attendees; Mark and I did a half hour of general
presentation on free software, GPL, data lock-in and other
disappointments of proprietary software, etc, then opened the
discussion to questions and hands-on probing and demonstration
of software available on the OpenCD (now yclept OpenDisk).  A
warm reception: pre-registration was required (and the Library
had sent out flyers and posted announcements in its evening-
program series -- very gratifying).  Everyone took home an
OpenCD, and several folks also took an Ubuntu Live CD.  Mark
and I promised to help with questions by phone.

The most popular applications were OpenOffice (not surprisingly),
The GIMP, and Inkscape, with one attendee each expressing an
interest in taking home GIMP and Inkscape to do real work --
after experimenting with them on both the Ubuntu and Microsoft
system we had set up.  (Thanks to Bill Poliquin, of GotInk4U
in Nashua, not only for the white-box systems, but most
particularly for a legitimate Microsoft system, which we feel
is mandatory in this kind of venue; neither Mark nor I has any
Microsoft detritus left.  GotInk4U has been VERY generous in its
support of SFD Souhegan Valley - thanks, Bill!)

Many and indisensable thanks to Sue Arthur, of course, of the
Lawrence Library, whose enthusiasm for this project caused us
to keep going on this valuable next step.

The response was gratifying.  If anything the audience surprised
us by their advance knowledge: almost all of them already use
Firefox, for instance.

We definitely intend to continue the series.  Next time it seems
promising to take knowledge of "free" almost for granted, and
concentrate on goal-based material, say a night of "how to do
word processing" (using OpenOffice), a night of "how to do a
newsletter" (using Scribus), etc.  This will help structure
the material, too, even as it freshens the announcement.  It's
also consistent with advice we've gotten from library people.

Stay tuned.

Bill & Janet & Roseann & Mark