FYI, FSF is downsizing offices, some old gear will be at MIT swap fest tomorrow

Mon Aug 19 18:41:45 EDT 2024

Unfortunately I received this email on Monday at 5:11 P.M.

Fortunately I was also a vendor at the MIT swapfest, selling off some of my collection of computers, and happened to end up only one vendor's stall away from Anush and the FSF sale.

Since I was there mostly to SELL things rather than BUY things, I had to control myself, but I did end up with a nice adjustable monitor stand capable of holding three monitors at a time via VESA mounts.   I made a donation to the FSF.

I already had a "Happy Hacking" keyboard (complete with zippered case), so I was not tempted by that.

Unfortunately I did not sell a LOT of things, but I did have one table that was reserved for "Free as in free beer" items, and most of those did finally go....including a copy of Mark Williams COHERENT system with printed manual and distribution media.   The person who found this and recognized it was VERY happy to get it and even though it was on the "Free as in free beer" table insisted in giving me 20 dollars for it....which later bought some non-free beer at the Cambridge Brewing Company.

I also had a great conversation with some of the people staffing the FSF vendor space regarding RISC-V technology vs CISC and (finally) showed Anush the GNU tattoo on my left shoulder.   He was suitably impressed.

I will also point out that I recently learned the Cambridge Brewing Company in Kendal Square is closing.  Originally opened in 1989 it was located adjacent to DEC's Cambridge Research Group and is close to where OSF, the X Consortium and MIT.

I have had many beers there with various people in the DEC, Unix and Linux space, and will miss it.   Its last day open will be December 20th.

md

https://www.newsbreak.com/boston-25-news-wfxt-523003/3566022687478-cambridge-brewery-announces-closing-after-35-years-in-business?s=dmg_local_email_bucket_18.web2_fromweb

> On 08/17/2024 5:36 PM EDT Ian Kelling <iank at fsf.org> wrote:
> 
>  
> August 18th, http://w1mx.mit.edu/flea-at-mit/
> 
> This is isn't something the FSF is promoting or doing officially, but I
> figured some people here might be interested to know. It is the first
> time FSF is downsizing offices at least in the last 20 years (maybe all
> 39 years), so it had accumulated a lot of stuff.
> 
> A friend of the FSF and a summer intern, Anush, took it upon himself to
> do this. I helped him pick out stuff, but I'm not able to make it
> there. Things will have very reasonable prices (especially whatever is
> left at the end).
> 
> A few highlights off the top of my head:
> Serial multiplexers.
> Some desktop computers with libreboot.
> Heavy iron server case, 3 or 4u, takes a desktop power supply, 8 hot
>   swap bays.
> Some nice ps2 keyboards: happy hacking, model m or similar
> Lots of other stuff, I'm sure some of it is equally interesting I just
> can't remember.
> 
> Related:
> https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/fsf-office-closing-party
> 
> After I finish this moving work, start attending local user group
> meetings again.
> 
> -- 
> Ian Kelling | Senior Systems Administrator, Free Software Foundation
> GPG Key: B125 F60B 7B28 7FF6 A2B7  DF8F 170A F0E2 9542 95DF
> https://fsf.org | https://gnu.org
> _______________________________________________
> gnhlug-discuss mailing list
> gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org
> http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/