written by Cameron Spitzer (event organizer and very long time FLOSS advocate, cls (at) greens (dot) org ) <pre>I've had a table at the San José Peace and Justice Center's Holiday Peace Fair <<a href="http://www.sanjosepeace.org/article.php/20101108154316816" target="_blank">http://www.sanjosepeace.org/article.php/20101108154316816</a>> a few times since 2003, distributing "Free Software"*. Yesterday was the best. Drew, Brian, Susan, and Drew's Giant Penguin joined me. We showed off Puppylinux <<a href="http://puppylinux.org/main/Manual-English.htm" target="_blank">http://puppylinux.org/main/Manual-English.htm</a>> running Firefox <<a href="http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/security/" target="_blank">http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/security/</a>> on Susan's twelve year old laptop, Ubuntu Studio <<a href="http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ubuntustudio" target="_blank">http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ubuntustudio</a>> playing the Peace Center's videos on my two year old laptop, and Ubuntu <<a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/project/about-ubuntu/our-philosophy" target="_blank">http://www.ubuntu.com/project/about-ubuntu/our-philosophy</a>> on Drew's netbook. They gave us the best table, in the lobby across from registration. The Peace Fair is for holiday shopping, and our pitch is "this is a stocking stuffer for the person who takes care of your PC." We handed out roughly twenty Puppies and a dozen Ubuntus. And an aptosid <<a href="http://aptosid.com/" target="_blank">http://aptosid.com/</a>>. The vibe was way up since last time. Thanks to Ubuntu's and Android's success, and Oracle's recent attachment to Openoffice.org and MySQL, people who pay attention to business or technology news know open source software is competing well against the trade secret stuff. So we aren't starting from zero in public outreach and awareness any more. But the business news never tells you /*why*/, so there's a kernel of curiosity with progressives now. With that out of the way, it's easier to make the social justice connection. All the folks I spoke with got it with little or no explaining. Everything worked. We installed Puppylinux on the old laptop the night before, and had no idea how complete it was. I think the folks who try it out will be impressed. Puppy comes with its own "lightweight" word processor, web browser, and spreadsheet, but it's also got three-click installers for Firefox, Openoffice, Komposer <<a href="http://kompozer.net/" target="_blank">http://kompozer.net/</a>>, and a lot of other stuff. Komposer is for authoring web sites. Puppy and Ubuntu Studio connected to the wifi in the building automatically. I didn't take the time to troubleshoot Drew's Network Manager, we were too busy talking to people, eating, and shopping. -- /Cameron in San José/ *Richard Stallman capitalizes "Free Software <<a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/" target="_blank">http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/</a>>" that way. It's to distinguish it from Proprietary, Patented, and Trade Secret Software that's Distributed Without Charge But You Don't Get Any Rights. </pre>