Hi all,
unfortunately SFD '07 in Oamaru had to be cancelled due to work commitments of myself.
Dirk
Hi All,
Software Freedom Day '06 is over, and at least for this little town on the South Island of New Zealand it was quite the success. Numerous punters, attracted by the extensive pre-event press coverage in the Otago Daily Times, the Oamaru Mail, the High Country Herald and Radio New Zealand's National Radio's "Nights with Brian Crump", came specifically to find out about easier, safer web-surfing, email and switching to Linux. Plenty of folks, disenchanted with the software and operating system on their computers at home left with an Ubuntu 6.6.1 or OpenCD 3.1. For those with old machines, Damnsmalllinux was plugged extensively. Some of the attendees fell immediately in love with TheGimp, others were amazed by OpenOffice's ability to open obscure and ancient Microsoft files. There were requests to form a North Otago Open Software Society (NOOSS??) and everyone seemed to be genuinely happy, old or young. I had young geeks randomly come up to me, shaking my hand, thanking me for my work and gentlemen in their eighties telling me that they're already running Mandriva (or Ubuntu, Red Hat, Suse, etc). A councillor from Waitaki District Council was rather interested and everybody loved 'Elephants Dream' that ran on my 21 inch monitor.
A big thanks to the proprietors of Morcomm Systems who were crucial in making this a success by providing electricity and internet access. When in Oamaru, check them out: they're great people, now their stuff and have great offers for pretty much everything that involves wireless communication.
Things to improve for next year? As it was quite blustery, I would probably hold the event the next time indoors. My monitors were always in danger to getting blown off the table and the leaflets had to be secured with stones. Somehow I never got my CD's from Canonical so I had to burn them all myself. Not particulary fun.
Nevertheless it was definitely worth the time and effort, so thanks to Birgit Stach and Steve Dawson for the logistics, Waitaki District Council for giving me the OK to hold the event on their streets and Morcomm for infrastructure.
You can find the pictures of the event here