[luau] OpenSourceAdvocates

[R. Scott Belford]

On Thursday 10 October 2002 09:39 pm, Warren Togami wrote:

> I'm afraid CompUSA wouldn't do that again unless we can guarantee a much
> larger turnout.

For a Sunday in Hawaii during football season, we had a great turnout for 
this affair.  Should CompUSA choose to want to sell training services for 
Linux, they will be far more successful hosting these events on a weekday.  
It is more motivating to go to training when you miss work instead of play.  
I guess this is why they don't hold training sessions on Sunday?  One of 
their training rooms is more than adequate to hold task specific seminars 
which would entice attendees to want to learn more.

For what it's worth, if there was an intention for our event last Sunday to 
promote training at CompUSA, I never got that Marketing Message.  I did not 
know that we were in any way accountable/responsible for assuring or even 
promoting turnout.  I wish that I had because as an MBA and Masters in 
Communication student, I can help facilitate some synergy between MPLUG and 
CompUSA training objectives.

It would be short-sighted not to attempt to capitalize on the free publicity 
and interest that companies like IBM are bringing to Linux.  Targeted and 
well-promoted Linux sessions at CompUSA on weekdays would definitely generate 
adequate revenue for their top line and presumably impressive income for the 
bottom line (I don't manage expenses there).  

This would inevitably benefit our local economy as the excellent quiver of 
training weapons offered at CompUSA would be strengthened by the inclusion of 
Open Source software.  I dare say that the more Open Sourced software is used 
locally, the more money we will keep on the islands.  Rather than paying a 
premium to a collection of shareholders and investors for a proprietary 
solution supported by off-island contractors, we can instead pay our local 
professionals to maintain our software solutions.

With respect to the original them of this thread, it would be a shame to see 
legislation mandate the use of a specific type of software, be it Proprietary 
or Openly Sourced.  It would be an equal shame to see OpenSourceAdvocates 
fail to take their message to the free market and allow it to compete on its 
merits.  The free market is more capable of affecting lasting change than any 
legislation. 

People are afraid of Free, Openly Sourced software solutions because they are 
unfamiliar with it.  This means that CompUSA should do this again because a 
much larger turnout is waiting to be summoned with publicity and marketing.  
There is much we could do to help.  

scott