[ale] I was a Booth Monkey for linux

[Michael A. Smith]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ale at ale.org [mailto:owner-ale at ale.org]On Behalf Of Charles
> Shapiro
> Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 1999 8:55 AM
> To: ale at ale.org
> Subject: [ale] I was a Booth Monkey for linux
>
>
> At the ripe old age of 41, I find it difficult to code all day, come
> home, and then code all night. But after using and enjoying linux for
> several years, I knew that I had to give something back to the
> community. That was why I volunteered to help man the Atlanta Linux
> Enthusiasts booth at the Association for Information and Image
> Management (AIIM) convention on April the thirteenth. It
> was truly a Learning Experience. The main thing I learned was that
> there is in fact a place for the marketing types we love to sneer
> at.
>
> I learned a bunch of stuff Not to Do. Don't use a reference to the
> Nuremburg Rally when you're talking to a German, even if you are
> explaining how the local users group members intend to greet Linus.
> Don't juggle clubs in front of the vice president of ALE. It makes him
> real nervous. The Juggling Gig in a China Shop story won't help
> this. Don't try to pack your usual run around the block in before
> getting to the show, then buy one of those $3.00 soft drinks
> there. The bottles do not fit over the water fountains, so you'll
> never be able to get your money's worth of liquid into the bottle.
>
> The day offered some entertaining moments, although perhaps only
> in retrospect. I had the chance to sit down with the proud holder of a
> software algorithm patent and try to explain the Benefits of Linux to
> him. That let me feel the pain of a salesman asked to sell an
> unsaleable product. I got to try to explain the Wonders of CORBA in
> 100 words or less to an intelligent but non-programming
> audience. That helped me to see some of the joys of sales. I got
> to kibbitz on a lot of conversations between people who did not
> necessarily want to listen to me.  The trials of being a sales
> assistant came instantly to mind.
>
> Many of the people who came by the booth seemed to have trouble
> understanding the idea of a linux movement. We had to explain
> that Redhat does not own linux more than once. The concept that the
> different distributions of linux all act roughly the same once they're
> installed on your hard disk was also difficult to get across.
> To people accustomed to monolithic control of all aspects of an
> operating system, the idea of a gaggle of people getting together and
> producing valuable software seems magical.  This was not a "rough
> consensus and running code" crowd.
>
> Another persistent question was "Where are the people who base their
> products on linux at this show?".  This was difficult for someone
> who didn't wander the floor a little bit, especially since several of
> the people who _did_ offer products based on linux were not
> necessarily pushing it as a feature. One CD jukebox vendor was rumored
> to use linux for his control program, but you had to actually ask the
> people in the booth to find that out.
>
> Many of our visitors had trouble figuring out a business model which
> would work if they freely distributed their software.  Making money
> from linux is perhaps the quitessential example of "doing well by
> doing good", but it does take ingenuity to figure out how --
> especially if you're used to thinking in terms of making a profit from
> keeping secrets. I raved about the benefits of providing support for
> money, but one guy from New Zealand pointed out that his customers
> "would rather do it themselves than ask for help". He feared that if
> he opened his source and distributied linux might he would shoot
> himself in the foot.  A good answer to this dilemma exists, but I
> could not come up with it in five minutes.
>
> The ALE booth attracted the usual flow of suits and programmer
> types. A small but vocal subset of people wanted to sell _us_
> something as well.  One guy had a magic psychological system to make
> you More Creative at Work. I quickly moved to the other end of the
> booth from him. Another was giving out free sets of whitepapers on
> imaging technology.  These included a truly fawning analysis of
> Microsoft, which predicted that no matter how the Boys in Redmond
> screwed up, they would still retain control of every PC on the
> planet. After all, as the essay said, "People just want to do the best
> thing (for example, buy Windows) and get on with their jobs".  The
> packet did, contain some interesting nuggets, such as the equation "1
> pulp tree = 1/10th cord of wood = 10,000 pages = 1 file cabinet = 4
> boxes = 1/2 gigabyte = 1 CD".  A useful approximation at the ends,
> although the middle has some slop. A CD is actually closer to 700
> megs, for example.
>
> Of course, at any trade show it is important to score stuff.  The ALE
> booth had cool bottle openers and linux CDs, both courtesy of SuSE.
> If you go to something like this, make a point of taking a break to
> wander the rest of the floor. I missed the Falcons cheerleaders (they
> probably would have appreciated a little juggling), as well as a
> really nifty toy car keychain.  Many other booths offered food
> (fortune cookies, gummy bears).  A dedicated guy could probably have
> hustled some interesting stuff for nephews and other under-14
> relatives. And you might be able to justify it by trying to sell linux
> to the other exhibitors.
>
> So I may not have done as much for the Cause as I planned. Perhaps one
> person was truly impressed by my spiel that all linux jocks can juggle
> 5 balls. Maybe something I said will make someone remember their SuSE
> CD and put it on a '486 box to see if it runs right.  Perhaps one of
> the Linux Showcase folders I put into a CD folder will find a reader
> who will come.  Such is the life of a Marketing Type, scattering
> mustard seeds.
>
> Charles Shapiro
> cshapiro at harbinger.com
> 72300.3632 at compuserve.com
> Funny saying + 22-line ASCII art masterpiece here.
>
>

	I, for the longest time, didn't completely understand(and didn't appreciate
as much as I should have) the "Free Software" movement.  I recently picked
up the book "Open Sources" from the book store and gained a whole new
understanding and appreciation for those people who give freely of their
time and effort in order to prosper computers and science in general.  If
you haven't read the book, I would pick it up.  It has helped me to explain
to others the benefits of "Open Source"(that which is GPL'd).

Michael Smith
mike.smith at bigfoot.com