Time to Stop Preaching to the Converted?

by Joe Brockmeier - May. 14, 2010Comments (8)

SELF 2009 Is it really a good use of time and effort for open source projects to man booths at open source events? Lots of projects spend money and man hours sending representatives to events like SouthEast LinuxFest (SELF), and Texas Linux Fest, but is it really doing any good?

This week I've been working on finding volunteers to help with the GNOME booth at SouthEast LinuxFest in June. I've also spent lots of time in the past finding local volunteers to staff openSUSE booths at events. You can usually find a couple of energetic and personable folks to hand out CDs and answer questions about any popular project at Linux shows, but the effectiveness is questionable. Most of the events cater to a crowd that already knows about Linux and the major projects. The first year I worked for Novell, the effect of having an openSUSE booth at events was noticeable, because the project had been entirely absent at most of the events.

Having a presence at events is sort of de rigueur for major projects. If nobody turns up, people often wonder why project X decided to skip the event. And you'll find a handful of folks who turn up just to ask question about a project ("how the hell do I get my wireless to work on 11.0?") and look for swag. But having spent quite a few hours doing booth duty, I wonder if it's absolutely necessary or effective compared to what volunteers could be doing.

Wouldn't it be more effective to send volunteers to other events and talk to people who don't know about GNOME or Linux, and hand out CDs and answer questions? Not to minimize the impact, but being at open source events is mostly a maintenance function. It doesn't usually grow the community much. It's a good community building exercise, but I'm not convinced that manning a booth is strictly necessary for this. It'd probably be better to just turn up at the event with an "Ask me About GNOME" (or whatever the project is) and work on talking to as many people as possible.

It might be that projects focus primarily on open source events only because of inertia. It's expected, and it's easy. Turning up at a LinuxFest is, once you've found the bodies, a pretty low-effort affair. Show up, set up a few systems, answer questions, and hand out some media and stickers. The events are set up to work with not for profit entities, so it's usually not much of a hassle for anyone involved.

But turning up at other events is more daunting and takes a lot more bootstrapping. It also could be far more effective. It means making contacts outside the open source community and convincing people to grant booth space to a project, and maybe raising money to put up a booth. It means spending much more time answering very basic questions and clarifying just what open source and Linux are. That probably scares off quite a few advocates in and of itself. It would mean more effort all around, but after more than 10 years of community events, I think I'd rather be working events to educate a more diverse audience about open source and attending open source events socially.

This year I'll be at SELF to man the GNOME booth, and if anyone else would like to help I'd be happy to have you at the booth. But the next time I show up to spread the word about Linux, GNOME, and open source, it'll be at an event where the attendees will have far more questions.

Picture from SELF 2009, courtesy of kudzu13 on Flickr.

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by an anonymous user on May. 14, 2010

I work for a k-12 public school district, over the years I have implemented many opensource projects. What I don't get is why opensource is not courting k-12 people like it should. Especially at the administration level. Sure there is the ltsp project, but you will only see them at opensource events. The only people that go to those are the techies (like me). I can only steer technology so far if I don't have admin buy in. There are so many opportunities for k-12 administrators to hear what opensource can do, but they are never there.

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by COD on May. 14, 2010

//If nobody turns up, people often wonder why project X decided to skip the event.//

Isn't this the primary reason any company attends any trade show or conference? I don't think it's anything unique to FOSS, it's the nature of the whole trade show world.

But your point is a good one. There are all kinds of street fairs and community events where a couple of local volunteers could do a lot of good in just a few hours. Our local LUG has had success setting up a table at the library on Software Freedom Day and just talking with the folks that were visiting the library.

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by Rikki Kite on May. 14, 2010

I love going to events and staffing our booth because it gives me a chance to meet our subscribers, find new authors, check out other booths and learn about their products and projects, and hand out our magazine to people who might not have seen it yet. I get tons of great feedback from current subscribers, which I can share with the editors. I also like mixing it up and attending events without having a booth to run so I can go to talks, etc. I guess my answer is: different events have different audiences and help you meet different goals. Sometimes you teach, other times you learn, and if you're really lucky you get to do both at the same time.

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by Larry Cafiero on May. 14, 2010

Interesting perspective, Joe, but I think "preaching to the converted" and doing outreach "off the reservation," so to speak, are two completely different things (and believe me, I know the latter needs to be stepped up a bit). Shows like SELF, Texas Linux Fest and SCALE certainly serve a function that is more important than just getting an "Amen" from the choir -- and the fact that attendance is up at expos, as it was at SCALE this year, is a testament that shows that there is more than just a passing interest in FOSS and a testament that events like this are vital now more than ever.

But preaching to the choir is not enough, obviously, and some "missionary work" is also necessary. During Lindependence 2008, we set up a booth at the Felton Farmers Market on Tuesdays where we were handing out "Organic Software" in the form of Live CDs with copious instructions, which led up to folks being invited to attend the Lindependence events in July 2008. It's getting out to fairs -- as Berkeley LUG is known for (great going, guys!) -- and other non-digital events that could be the next step to be done in tandem -- in tandem -- with the shows and expos.

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by Jefro on May. 17, 2010

I agree completely - it's one reason I love to propound my platform (embedded Linux) in places where embedded is on the fringe. I let the marketing department handle the huge conferences and try to do what I can to extend in breadth rather than depth.

It isn't always easy to tell which shows are fringe and which are simply unnecessary to attend. It's funny you should write about this right now - I was just thinking this weekend about adding a "relevance" column to my list of open-source conferences that are applicable to embedded folk (at jefro.net/blog). The thing is, some of the most relevant conferences aren't always the most fun to attend, and of course fun is what it's all about. :)

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by William Rose on May. 19, 2010

I love going to events because it gives me a opportunity to meet our subscribers, find new authors, check out other booths and learn about their products and projects.

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by an anonymous user on Jun. 19, 2010

This is really interesting. But all this guys that do such thing it is right.

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by an anonymous user on May. 05, 2011

Ive attended a similar one in Brighton UK and its more about meeting like minded souls fo rme!

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