[LUAU] Strategic Guidance for IP Conference and Inspiration for a HOSEF Conference

[R. Scott Belford]

Nothing to add to this.

> Bonjour Scott, and bonjour everyone on your lists (local forwarding
> of this message welcome),
> 
> R. Scott Belford wrote:
> 
>> We are on it.  I cannot thank you enough for calling this to our
>> attention.  I am embarrassed that this was going on under our noses
>> and we had no idea.
> 
> 
> No problem, this happens to us all the time. The pro-patent lobby has
> much money to spend, and they set-up so many events that it is hard
> for us to track and to have people present at a significant number of
> them, not to tell about dissuasive registration fees.
> 
>> This answers our question as to whether or not we should start
>> hosting our own OSS conference in Hawaii each year.
> 
> 
> I encourage you to, although transportation costs may be a real
> travel for invited speakers, whether you pay for them or they pay for
> themselves.
> 
> In Bordeaux, from 6-10 July 2004, the Libre Software Meeting will
> once again take place : http://lsm.abul.org/ . Just in case some of 
> you would like to come and visit Europe at this time...  8^)
> 
> At LSM 2002, for instance, we could give libre software to a
> representative of UNESCO, as reported in :
> 
> http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/mankind/lsm2002/index.en.html 
> http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/mankind/mankind.en.html
> 
> and it yielded some results :
> 
> http://portal.unesco.org/ci/ev?URL_ID=7548&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201&reload=1044355008
>  http://www.fwtunesco.org/atmlist/freesoftware.html
> 
> More to the point: after a night of thinking, I think there is a real
> opportunity for you : at the LSM, we had trouble having people from 
> Asia and Oceania come, because of transportation fees. Having a
> conference located in the Pacific would make it possible to have
> Asians come, in particular the Japanese, who have a surprisingly low
> number of LUGs (and of motivated software professionals in general)
> compared to the size of their population, so that they can be willing
>  to have new perspectives. I have some addresses to provide you in
> case you start the project.
> 
> The first ALSM (African Libre Software Meeting) will take place this
> november. I think there is room and need for a PLSM (Pacific LSM). 
> The philosophy of the LSM is here :
> 
> http://lsm2002.abul.org/philosophy/
> 
>> I have forwarded this information to our hosef-managers list 
>> http://lists.hosef.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo
> 
> 
> Great. Thank you very much indeed.
> 
>> After everyone wakes up and we kick around the idea of flyers, I
>> will post the info to our LUAU mailing list that has nearly 300
>> members.  I registered for the conference, and I am sure that many
>> of the hosef-managers will register.  Several are UH professors.
> 
> 
> Send my best wishes to these colleagues from the other side of
> Earth...   8^)
> 
>> My only concern with the flyers that has to be hashed out is the
>> following: HOSEF itself may not be able to pass them out because
>> the University of Hawaii is kind enough to host the HOSEF server
>> and mailing lists.  With the Chancellor of UH speaking at the
>> conference, we have to be very careful about maintaining the aloha
>> and respect for privacy that he will expect.
> 
> 
> I fully understand. Getting and keeping support is essential at the
> local level. Maybe you can just leave them on a table, and make sure
> they are not thrown away by members of the pro-patent lobby.
> 
>> That said, we have to do our part to make certain the the
>> conference is balanced.  It seems as if there is potential for it
>> to be a good discussion.  However, I fear that it will be a
>> "discussion" set up to lead attendees to believe that OSS is
>> inferior.
> 
> 
> Yes, this is the original aim of the conference, but as having been a
> lobbyist for more that 3 years now I can assure you that even the
> best trained and biased chairs may be overflooded when the audience
> is willing to hear different arguments from quiet people. Getting a
> hand on the list of attendants and sending them arguments afterwards
> is also a winning strategy, as I did for : 
> http://www.abul.org/brevets/articles/icrt_20031124.php3
> 
> If I remember well your pages, you have several local companies that
> have successfully migrated towards libre software. It would be great
> that representatives of these bodies could come and give their
> figures, for the enlightenment of the audience.
> 
> In particular, there are several documents of interest for easing
> migration :
> 
> http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida/export/files/en/1618.pdf (available
> from 
> http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida/jsps/index.jsp?fuseAction=showDocument&documentID=1743&parent=chapter&preChapterID=0-452-471)
> http://www.ibm.com/linux/RFG-LinuxTCO-vFINAL-Jul2002.pdf 
> http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html
> 
> Moreover, if you do not want to look too "aggressive" with respect to
> UH, you can also make things happen outside of the UH, that is, find
> a slot in the schedule which is left unoccupied, and set-up an 
> alternate demo of libre software products in a nearby place, where
> all the documents could be available on tables. Then, you would just
> have to publicize the event as something like "in the context of the
> conference, the Mid-Pacific LUG is happy to invite you to a demo of
> libre software products, etc, etc". That's quite disturbing for the
> other side. Put this in a slot that is empty or most boring, and have
> your members in the audience talk to their neighbors and publicize
> the event.
> 
> Other funny ideas are great, like distributing live CDs of Linux
> distros to the attendants, etc, etc, just as a way to give material
> and data to them, not acting aggressively. They spend the money to
> bring the people here, and you can advocate them in mass. The IIPI is
> so kind, don't you think ?    8^)
> 
> This night, I also got a crazy idea, which may not be workable
> according to the location of the conference, I don't know. Here it
> is. The problem with these conferences is that attendees have in
> general no idea on what to do after the conference, and stay in their
> hotels. If, at the end of Day 2, you organize and publicize a "surf 
> and libre software training" session for the attendees, where they
> could have cool drinks, surf teaching, and libre software propaganda
> feeding, maybe you could drain much sympathy ?
> 
>> I will be in touch soon, and feel free to monitor or join our
>> mailing lists to see what develops.
> 
> 
> OK, but we're pretty busy here with the European Council erasing all
> of the anti-swpat amendments that the European Parliament succeeded
> to vote. We have to have the Parliament pass out the Council's
> decision, which only happened once in the past 30 years, so it will
> be a great deal of work to make MEPs understand that it is worth the
> game...
> 
>> aloha and thanks again
> 
> 
> Best wishes of success for your actions.
> 
> Let's keep in touch,
> 
> f.p.
> 
> 
>> As an aside, I love what you do with your company.  So far HOSEF
>> has either had schools order their servers or we would put them
>> together for them, for free, with parts that they ordered.  Your
>> operation gives the schools the support from a vendor that they
>> seek while sustaining your development.  Very well done.
> 
> 
> Indeed, it is noy my company, just the one of two core members of
> AbulEdu, who coined the idea to earn a living and provide schools a
> set of reliable partners that look more "commercial". But please note
> that any PC retailer willing to adhere to the AbulEdu charter can
> become an AbulEdu retailer. If you know any such company interested
> in Hawaii, please have them get in touch with Ryxeo.com or
> abuledu.com . AbulEdu is indeed a great distro, with many educational
> software developed by teachers for primary schools, so it is 
> definitly more that just a libre desktop.
>