New York City: All Five Boroughs

Ideas for getting Free Software across to public in NYC

Worries About This Process and Having Success Out There

• You need different approaches for different demographics
  • You cannot use tech strategies to change the minds of non-tech people
  • How do we figure the who-when-where to properly address those demographics?
• We have to define the goals?
  • Is the goal to just advance revenue/membership of FSF?
  • Is the goal to get more people using Free Software?

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NYC Subways

• Deface ads
  • Put a sticker on "Do you have Microsoft Office in your pocket?" ads that say: "Is that DRM in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? www.someantidrmsite.org"
  • Put up same ad with slightly different information, but "look alike" (aka "subvertising", RTMark-style culturejams)
• Fake service advisory posters: PC line out of service in 5 years, due to DRM [1]
• Do car-by-car subway slogan speaking
• Challenges
  • It's illegal (or is it?)
  • Cannot be official

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Education for Colleges/Universities

• FSF could start a small college to develop software?
• Well, ok, that's a huge job, but maybe a course that would help people learn about Free Software development process.
• But, on the other hand, isn't that too Open-Source-y, not getting the politics out to people.
• Can we show young people and students the community aspects?
• Ethics have to be part of teaching development methodology
• People trying to explore idea of freedom
• What about a class where two competitive teams try to do a particular job?
• Challenges:
  • Finding departments/professors that are receptive.
  • Need people who can develop courseware

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Get Everyone Giving Talks and Speeches

• How many people are off giving talks? How do we get more people giving talks?
• Could prepared speeches be made available?
• no, we need tools and people to help them to learn how to speak.
• Challenges:
  • We have to make everyone join toastmasters
  • Public speaking is fearful for some

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Automatic Donation Links in Emails

• Shouldn't we all have automatic links at the end of the email to get donations?
• .signature line that gets automatically generated
• Individuals should be able to give directly to sub-projects that interest them
• Challenges:
  • bkuhn mentions having tried it but it didn't work well (only Orion gave)

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Let's Be A Cult?

• Should we be like the Mormons/Scientologists/Falun Gung
• "Would you like to be contacted later from someone who will teach you about software freedom?"
• But it's so hard to get across the ideas simply; no one knows or cares about software issues. This tact is less effective with such people.
• Challenges
  • We don't want to be a cult

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Elementary Schools

• Free Software in the elementary schools
• Challenges:
  • • Very very hard to do education stuff at K-12 levels, particularly in NYC

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Need a Philosophically Focused GNU/Linux Distribution

• GNUbuntu
• Would be given out and relates to the cult idea and giving talks/speeches