A Notepad for LINdependence 2008

Here in WA State the home of Microsoft a lot of people don't know anything about GNU/Linux and those who do have been offended by some guy trying to force them to use it. I'm in South East WA State next to Idaho and this area is very Non-Linux mainly because of Ignorance (not in a bad way). There are 1,500 People in my town, 31,293 in Lewistion Idaho, 7,244 in Clarkston WA, 1,125 in Asotin WA, and 2,676 in Dayton WA. All within 30 - 45 miles of Pomeroy WA. That comes to a total of 43,838 People that may be potentially covered not to mention the local LUG in Walla Walla WA that might come down.

I would love to come down to California for the Media exposure to Ultumix GNU/Linux but I think that it is more important to reach out to this larger community. If we could combine forces by linking via skype and having volunteers with Digital cameras record the event and send it to the media and put it up online. I am going to try to get a Rock Band together and have a video game competition as well as an Ultumix GNU/Linux demonstration.

Justin Breithaupt
PO Box 485
Pomeroy WA 99347
ultumix@mindblowingidea.com
208-750-5628

www.mindblowingidea.com
www.ultumix.com

This is a two part project.

The first part involves documenting all nontrivial feature or improvement gains by the participating FOSS projects between today, March 6th, 2008, and some time soon after LIN08 starts in early July. Basically, anything nontrivial that gets added to the project gets recorded in a profile page for that project.

The second part involves having anyone submit feature requests (hopefully reasonable ones) to any participating project. The submission period might be the first week of July. We randomly select a subset of the requests and the projects have until the end of the month to produce the features.

There are many possible variations to the second part. Keep in mind some requests might be too difficult to implement in a month. Also, it's possible that number of features would be too large.

OK. How about the following "challenge." We might choose 20 random feature requests and the projects affected decide which are the most reasonable ones to shoot for. A person whose feature is chosen *DESIGNATES A CHARITY TO WHICH WE WILL DONATE $X IF THAT FEATURE GETS IMPLEMENTED IN TIME*. We might do % donations if a chunk of the feature gets implemented.

This is one way to really draw attention and get some cheering and rallying from inside and outside the FOSS community.

For part one, I'd like to get thousands of projects to participate if not more.

For the second, we might let everyone from part one participate (unless they opt out), but we need to cut down the possible feature list to make it practical.

Part two provides an incentive for projects to participate. They will get special attention if they are among the chosen for the feature challenge. How many projects wouldn't want to get an international stage while the engineers and testers and others work around the clock to see if they can meet a Good Cause challenge? They get lots of free publicity and likely will grow their community.

[Fundraiser $$ idea:] This second portion is potentially so beneficial to the participating projects that we might reserve a group of slots to be filled by patrons to LIN08 (eg, some projects with corp backing can pay to play). Plus guaranteeing that some high-profile projects will be represented increases the attraction of this and the community involvement because the projects are probably already fairly large. In this way we also increase the odds of the challenge being met. Hopefully, no one will find it distasteful to contribute to the wider LIN08 effort in order to reserve a spot.

The amount we give may even be determined after the challenge starts based on the scope of the feature.

Also, we could reserve yet more spots for feature challenges based on voting. This way interesting features can make the cut and not rely on randomness, but randomness is good for some of the spots for sure.

Another possibility is to make it somewhat of a contest and maybe link project/feature challenges with cities participating in LIN08. [Not sure about further details with this one.]

Why do this? It draws out the benefits of FOSS and how it stands out from the proprietary crowd (or from the strictly proprietary crowd). The first part shows FOSS constantly growing with participation from anyone. FOSS is HUGE and is always moving forward. The second part is to draw attention to LIN08 and Freedomware/FOSS while prompting existing community members and completely new faces to participate in a project for the sake of charities.

So we show the capability of the community to pull together in significant fashion, and show that everyone is a participant if they chose to be one. The proprietary world neither has those resources nor welcomes its users' contributions in such a user empowering fashion. Further, we highlight that large corporations today are finding real value for themselves in contributing to FOSS and can work together with us and each other for a common good.

I don't know about you guys, but this just makes me want to put my (nonexistent but hypothetical) proprietary platforms over to the side and see how I can become more involved in this FOSS world!

[To-do.. set up project pages (use wikis for 4 month "growth" period, but then present the results in a nice fashion) and get as many as possible to agree to this and start contributing. Consider logistics if we have to deal with thousands of projects. Determine the scope of the challenge, eg, how many features/slots will we choose and the other details. Try to work out a plan that projects can use to help themselves organize for this. Maybe volunteers from various projects with form a team and help design this through properly and build tools (if needed) they all can use.]

Here's a potential plan.

We (or just me) interview various individuals that have contributed to FOSS. A main goal would be to have many such interviews for LIN08 in July. "Many" can be hopefully 50 or more.

The contributions should span the spectrum. From helping out by filing in a complaint, to providing some info on hw compatibility, to helping a newbie online, to the many levels of contributing code to a project (minor bug fix, new feature, etc, from a full-time dev to a hobbyist to someone whose line of work is quite different or tangential to the contributed project). The contributions can be in the legal, marketing, business, journalism, or some other area, too.

The various types of contributions (which we might want to categorize) allow for different formats. For example, for a developer, we may have a link to actual instructions on downloading what they had to work with, then adding their modification, and building it to see the improved results (for those that want to play along.. like other developers). We may add in demos, vids, and even offers from the interviewee to help the audience out (for $ or not).

Some of the themes I hope to capture are how you can seize control and get something done that otherwise would not get done. You can make a difference to others (or to self). You feel good about what you accomplished. The contribution helped land you a job or a raise. You were in control. You can do anything, even what others don't expect will ever get done, with the slab of clay knows as Freedomware or FOSS. ETC.

So my plan of attack for this project is to do a few such interviews. Maybe even find a few interviews already done and see if I can contact the person to refine the interview. I guess I would need to better establish goals for the interview.

Once a few have been done, I'd like to present the project to a larger group of people to see if they can help. Eventually, we would need many people to do self-interviews or go out and interview others if we want lots of these.

Also, it should be clear that no one need do a professional job because the material would be open for others to help fix. We should suggest that wikis be used to publish the initial interviews for others to improve upon.

A goal is for readers to see how Freedomware/FOSS is truly different from what they are used to and really provides value that is unmatched by anything in the proprietary world. They don't have to dump Windows or what they use, but they have much to gain by adopting Freedomware into their homes/businesses. And there is such a large selection of apps and distros!

On a section of the project website, we can list how volunteers/readers can try to find candidates. Examples.. Ask if anyone is interested in this project or can provide leads. Ask on general or specific forums, IRC, mailing lists (be polite), etc. Scan online resolved bug reports or look at project change logs or ask contact individuals. ETC. Distros frequently have docs and changelog directories if you look.

Also, on the website we can link to works in progress and a howto (and a faq, etc).

Note, that what I have in mind are reaching out to interview ordinary people that could easily not be recognized outside their homes. That's not a rule, but keep in mind that the goal is not to burden high profile individuals that probably have done 1001 interviews already, but to pack on volumes of (decent and organized) interviews that could appeal to Jack and Jill, ie, one of us (except we are a bit savvy already when it comes to Freedomware :-) ).

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The more types of projects we have for LIN08, the more likely we are to reach this or that person or even start up a great debate online or offline.

Accumulating some links of already done interviews or suggestions to possible candidates are very welcomed. As would be advice of many kinds.

Remember Freedomware Gamefest 2007 ..that series of tournaments that has been taking "forever" to bring to a conclusion? Much has and is being learned. [Thanks, lib for keeping everything together.]

Well, let's list some of the benefits of having another gamefest in Felton and some of the details of how we might implement it:

-- The gamefest idea was popular at least within some circles. It would be even more popular if the games could actually be demo'd live and filmed. Seeing is believing. Seeing something done is easier than reading instructions. Even better if others set things up for you.
-- This adds activities to LIN08.
-- Games are a very important part of taking Linux mainstream.
-- A major difficulty with FG2007 was keeping people's attention. Scheduling matches was just difficult because of the timezone differences. There were a limited number of people per timezone. This should not be the case with LIN08 because of (a) the much higher level of publicity than FG2007, (b) access to locals which would be right there and could be helped along. It's always easier to sell something when the "buyer" can experience it first hand up close. Scheduling would be done ahead of time and can be centered around Felton's time zone [see below].
-- Another issue with FG2007 was that it was being designed as we went along. Now, a body of experience and specifics (like the ruleset libervisco cooked up and the website land0(?) put together) already exist. FG2007's build-as-we-go process means that excitement of the moment was not exploited, so some people disappeared never to return.
-- By taking place within a short amount of time (eg, a tournament over a day or weekend), it becomes easier to keep everyone alert to important information. Everything can be centralized, and people will know to look in one place. We won't have to wonder if they forgot about the fest because it will be a hot item (and the schedule will be hashed out fairly specifically ahead of time).
-- Using the experience from FG2007, those that participated and want to help can provide guidance to the existing gaming communities to help meld everything together. These communities would be the experts in their game domain and have their connections. We would facilitate the tournaments and provide some of the glue (eg, single website and tools). Basically, for LIN08, we would better leverage the gaming communities. Collectively there is now more experience.
-- We can kick off the gamefest early in LIN08 by giving out awards and doing presentations from FG2007. For example, there are demos to be made and maybe even other entertaining projects using material from FG2007. With this strong start, we could give 1 week or 2 for additional users to register and then conduct the tournaments over the last 2 week(end)s of the month. Or something like that.
-- As mentioned, tournaments would be easier to do when everyone is in the same timezone. For LIN08 extended to other cities/towns, each such town would conduct their own local network games. The "closing ceremonies" could wrap up with results, awards, presentations, etc, from the various cities. And this perhaps after a final showdown between the winners of the various towns. .. Oh, and did I mention the added benefits of improved ping values when playing games locally?
-- We should be able to add a larger selection of games than the basic 4 from FG2007.
-- We might also be able to extend the fest to include activities beyond playing tournaments. One example would be to have each of the gaming communities participating design and implement a mod/hack specifically for LIN08. With a few months to go before July, there is time to make some interesting changes and showcase them at the event. [This should get their communities of players excited.] We can also have hackathons, tutorials, talks on gaming, etc, occur during July, through online collaboration if not directly from Felton.
-- We need to think specifically how to market and reach out to the Windows gaming communities, polling ahead of time perhaps to get an idea of what they think of this whole thing and what they might like. Remember that Freedomware is flexible/transparent like no closed platform can be. That should be attractive to many gamers (plus there are some decent freedomware games). We need to sell that aspect and try to wow others by taking advantage of this somehow. Let's propose these questions to the gaming communities and see what they come up with or think about these effort. See also: http://www.thetuxproject.com/node/183

-- I'll go into more detail in a different post, but "clearly" we'll have to provide awards of some type, for this and other activities.

-- Another possible gain might be to charge $5 to enter the tournaments. This would add seriousness and commitment from those registering to prevent the costs of having many not show up for scheduled matches. It could also help fund the process and allow for much larger prizes. Best of all, these $5 might just come from any donations that have already been given to LIN08 by the individual, so some will in a sense compete for free should they chose to take advantage of already contributed dollars and register for a tournament.

Further questions about the current Gamefest or even about this posting can generally be posted to nuxified.org or here.

[To-do: Reach out to the gaming communities as indicated above. Build a central website that will be used (eg, with focus on automation, centralization, and statistics). Which games? Which gamefest activities will take place specifically? Costs, eg, for large screens, a hosting location, any other equipment, labor,.. and prizes? Get some commitments so to be able to work out the details of Felton events (but plan backups). Figure out how to reach out to the Windows gaming communities and act. And this project, like many others, provides opportunities to reach out to artists/musicians/etc. Finish up FG2007 and demos, etc. Plan carefully (eg, into scheduled matches) how to interface local players with online players. Rework a set of rules.]

Current events:

During the month (July), we should have a section of the website (separate from other types of news feeds) devoted to detailing everything that is going on in the Linux world. *Positive* news should predominate by far, but certainly some important events and concerns/worries should be included.

Linux Today and a number of other sources would be very helpful (heck, these groups may even contribute some funds if they get some sort of special attention on the website). We can also probably tap into Google somehow (their Linux section and what not).

People checking out the event or participating or browsing will be reminded that Linux is an active thing even if they don't appear to hear much about it at work or while on Windows.

There is a bunch of material that would surprise a lot of people, especially if the news if fresh and ongoing.

On all website webpages, we might have a small box that shows the latest 3 or 4 items so that people constantly are encouraged to go and check out the news.

There is potentially a modest amount more complexity that can be introduced (categorizing, some customization), but this would be "we'll see as we go."

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Archives:

Separately, we have an archive section where we load up on the best events in the Linux world in the past few years. People will want to know more about Linux. Trying something out usually means you have to have a certain amount of faith in it. Is it supported by big players? ..or rather.. "Why isn't it supported by big players? ..Oh, it is! At least now it is. I see."

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Special content linked to news pieces detailing issues of importance to Linux/Freedomware:

We might even have links from the news pieces (archives as well as the current stuff if we categorize them appropriately real-time) to write-ups on that topic.

This would be one great way for example to let Jack/Jill know the issues surrounding
-- software patents
-- freedomware and its licenses
-- monopoly abuse (power of monopoly, some ms stuff to put it into context including abuses and lawsuits, pre-loads)

And we can have a part of each of these sections titled "So how can I help?" or "What you can do..."

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Another $$ opportunity:

For a pre-loads issues section we can link to vendors pre-loading Linux pages. This would be yet another opportunity to raise a few more bits of $$.

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This can be a subproject:

It should not be too difficult to generate an environment whose theme is "Linux will likely be a big part of your future." "These things you are hearing about now are not random tiny bits."

BTW, google is our best friend here, but I do have a long list of items I have saved over time. The only problem is that it will take a while to organize it.

Anyway, working on this project and related portions of the LIN08 website is a task all to itself. With some guidance, almost any volunteer can help find links and help categorize. This applies mainly to the archive section, but we can use the category names developed through that process to help structure the current news section.

I expect these volunteers (if any) to be among those that already use and really like Linux .. and have access to links and such.

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Engage news sites partners and strike deals:

We may blog about this later with a call to those that may find helping out here to be worthwhile. Naturally, we'd like to get the major news sources to pick up on it. We may even try to approach the various sites/editors to engage them and see what ideas they come up with since they would know their readers a bit and know what news sources they have. This may be part of a deal with the sites to feature them during July from Felton. And if other cities join in, we can easily clone/mirror this portion of the Felton site. Longer term, a LINdependence month/ Linux Town event hosted monthly around the world, if using some of the formats we develop for LIN08, would provide a source of readers (click revenues) for these Linux news sites.

Here are some miscellaneous ideas and comments.

Included:
-- Various observations and comments
-- Selling hard drives during LIN08
-- Packing LIN08 with activities that engage many
-- Use LIN08 to document Open Businesses free for all to use
-- Build/sell something commemorating the event, perhaps a single package with an assortment of goodies

Key ideas: Grow in breadth to ENGAGE as many as possible. Reach out conscientiously to Linux users AND to non Linux users.

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All marketing efforts should try to clearly define the target audience. Even a Great Idea (TM) (a Good Thing (TM) no doubt), should probably come in 2 or more flavors in order to work effectively. Remember that there might be a huge difference in mentality between a person that uses Linux and someone that hears about something going on but has no clue if it relates to him (her) or how to put it into context and if to waste any more than 20 seconds on it.

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Selling hard drives with Linux pre-installed:

This has nothing to do with Felton, but why not just start this up? It gives us more activities for Felton. It's something whose details we can nail down and publish for others to do. It will help get the LIN08 July compiled material out to people (on a hard drive we can have many gigs of material (vids or apps) etc). So though not related directly to LIN08, it's a great business activity we can attack while at Felton. We can use some of the LIN08 funds as seed money and maybe for some give aways, but otherwise, we can profit from this activity and document the business online. [see next section]

OK, so here are the details.

We can really overcome the main obstacle to installing LiveCDs if we provide hard drives installed with possible various flavors of Linux (so boot menu can have a nice wide selection).

We can install these throughout the month of July in Felton as orders come in or in anticipation, shipping towards the end of the month perhaps or whenever we have LIN08 material to put inside.

We should have installations geared towards noobs vs experts vs....

Hard drives of tens of gigabytes are very inexpensive, and they need not be spic and span new. We could offer both used (but tested) and new.

One approach is to load the Linux distros assuming that hard drive will be the main hard drive (so we set the boot flag) with Windows on the other installation, but even in this case there will need to be a little work to be done (to unset the other boot flag and maybe more). Whatever needs to be done can probably be done with some sort of installer app (maybe even an app to run from Windows). I'll have to research this, but *we can INVOLVE the grub people and others* to help us find a solution (it may be very easy or not).

If once we research more the preload idea turns out to be something of marginal gain (but I do have hope that this can be a signficant benefit), I would still like a video that shows how to install a new hard drive and then what instruction to give to installers so that the LiveCD is put on a blank new drive partition.

Whoever writes installers for LiveCD's should be approached (ENGAGED) to see if they can provide an option that is one-click, where it is known that there will be a hard drive with Windows only and another drive that will have space on it not yet partitioned and on which the installer will create a modest sized partition (not a hog of all the partition space) to install that LiveCD. Further, the Windows will be the OS to boot initially.

This common case should have a one-click solution, especially if the user has been pre-screened and is known to fit that scenario.

The idea is to avoid all of these intermediate steps of partition sizing and picking various things. Anyway, then we have a simple vid on "undoing the damage" which may involve nothing more than clicking on an uninstaller icon that leads to the setting or unsetting of some boot flags on the hard drive and anything else that may be needed.

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As suggested in the prior example, we can work on various business ideas from Felton. Why not, right? It adds activities to the month, and it is a great value to the FOSS world. Segments on TV can be done in how LIN08 is being used to advance the knowledge the community will have on building businesses on FOSS.

This is a great draw for what should be a prime target audience. We reach out to people that both use Linux or use Windows predominantly. It's one of those things that can catch the attention of many that might otherwise say, "oh, some zealots are having an orgy in some tiny city.. completely useless to me and the real world."

Now, they say, "whoah, they can't be doing what I just thought I heard, can they? Let me take a closer look."

Yes, we'll build business manuals and put the whole thing online available for all.

People LOVE to make $$$$$.

The hard drive example above would be just one such example we'll create.

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Do note the value of creating as many activities as possible. It fills up the month. It keeps a stream of fresh news coming out of Felton. It shows the donor dollars hard at work. It keeps Linux in the news.

AND it provides ways in which to engage larger and larger portions of the Linux community (both, as we prepare, and during July). This is what we want, everyone pulling together to take advantage of this one effort to create a large event to make a real dent.

AND very importantly, the more that are engaged, the easier it should be to market this to even more people.

AND the more that are engaged and have a stake and are members of communities, the more valuable donor dollars we might come across.

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LIN08 website needs to be building events/activities schedule (even if a bit vague like "during weeks 2 or 2 and 3 possibly over running that"). People seeing all the things that will be done, encourages them to get involved and support the effort.

Wide support for this effort: It's the difference between something really remarkable and maybe market changing to simply another "good effort."

The key to getting wide support from the community AND outside the community is to constantly be coming up with material that can answer the questions on others' minds: "Why should I bother helping you? What do I have to gain from this?"

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A gift idea:

Build various packages people can buy: "Felton in a Bag" [find a better name!]

Eg:
-- A hard drive with material from month (vids, tv clips, website image, etc).
-- His and hers T-shirt set (plus caps, mugs, or something else).
-- Selection of LiveCD/DVD (this may be in lieu of hard drive perhaps).
-- Some sort of autographed material.
-- A nice booklet on Felton with the names of all that voluntarily did the Linux thing and want their names there.
-- More general material on Felton (this may be funded by a chamber of commerce or some similar group).

.. this post last updated about 1 and half hour after initial posting.. to anyone reading this during that time, sorry about all the edits....

[In this post, I diverge from the main topic of fundraising, here and there, because I find that there are many sections where going off on a tangent is useful in helping to build the big picture.]

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Fundraising is one of the most important components of this effort.

Consider this system for individuals:

$10+ => Silver
$25+ => Gold
$100+ => Platinum
$250+ => Elite
$1000+ get special recognition (maybe refer to the "Tuxedo Group"]

Having a user account is very valuable since there may be many activities and you want to associate multiple items with individuals without losing information. Thus multiple donations would be handled as expected and add up into the individual's account tally. [Later I'll cover more details on keeping track of members (donors, participants, etc).]

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Some fundraising examples:

1 -- Have a "Visited Felton and Didn't Even Get a Lousy T-Shirt" (or something like that) sign book. We can suggest that existing (long time) Linux users signing leave at least a $1 donation. This way, we have a natural way to tap into a potentially very large number of people that want to be a part of this and help make it great without straining them and in a way where they may not mind or will actually want to contribute. "Linux gives us all so much, so by giving a small donation and signing, we help take it to the next level of Noobs."

I really like [1], as it invokes the relationship that there are many Linux users and donating a buck is not too painful and can be done perhaps when the month's bills are being paid as a (hopefully) small additional sacrifice in effort. We can raise a lot this way, but we have to provide the real goods in Felton. We should have an interesting lineup before we really start pushing awareness of something like a donations "I was there" sign-up sheet. And in the meantime, we should grow our network and keep it aware of deadlines.

2 -- Engage as many project communities as possible. We can try to sell the value of this event to many that already have donation capabilities on their website. By carrying a special logo and saying a personal word or twenty on the front page of the website, they can try to encourage participants to donate. At least for the next 4 months, they might ask patrons to consider earmarking donations to their project to go to LIN08. [Those without donation functionality can still link to the main LIN08 donation page, and we should also try to write up a tutorial and demo on how to set up such a donation system. In exchange for help along these lines (and we should try to leverage the community to help us/each other here), these too might be willing to ask their users for help.]

Having wide support increases not just the numbers that might consider contributing, but adds legitimacy thus increasing the probability that any specific individual might contribute. Additionally, it might tend to increase the amount that any specific individual might contribute.

The following values likely will go up with wide support within the communties:
N: number of donors
V: average donation
T = NV: total amount donated

So how do we convince each project that LIN08 will be worthwhile to them? Well, that is what we need to figure out on a project by project basis. Engage them. Have LIN08 be of value to them in a specific way if possible. Ask them for ideas and input into what they would like LIN08 to be like or what event they would be interested in having. Indirectly, however, LIN08 helps all FOSS communities.

2b -- Perhaps per activity we can have sponsors (at least in some cases to some extent).

[More generally, including in LIN08 specific items of value to a group may simply mean that we gain the cooperation of that group from now till then, and all the people we can get to talk about this thing over the upcoming months is A-OK. We'll build resources for all the people helping out: ways in which to reach out to others. One section of the website.. tools, techniques, advice on how to market to audience X. Also, we'll have lists of things we need to get done, designed, etc. Make sure we allow users at every step to contribute their ideas and make suggestions and contribute their own way, so that they don't feel that to help out simply means to "work" on "some list that was made by someone else."]

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The more attention we get, the more valuable exposure on our website and other material becomes. Thus, we can charge for ad space here or there, and we can also *trade* for ad space.

Helping grow the eyeballs by meeting some measurable goals can be traded for "ad" space. Of course, we can and should just give away ad space to as many Freedomware groups as possible.

Samples of ad space (no need to consider all of these examples seriously) are:

Signs announcing event X. The top sponsors would be in large letters or with logos and pay X or Y while others might get a free ride.

T-shirts (and co) can have sponsors or sponsored messages in some cases.

Distros provide terrific ad space within. The value depending on demand for that distro and/or if that distro has some special value, eg, if the distro is given to various groups. In fact, I think you can make lots of money just giving away distros in a targetted fashion. The more useful/special that distro would be to the target group, the more value ad space on it would be.

[We need to consider some potential designs or ideas so that distros can mix in Felton, LIN08, etc into the distro.]

Say we host a game tournament. We can have large monitors and take advantage of that a little (eg, with -- yuck -- commercials ..or ads on the boxes, tables, equipment, etc).

Youtube will provide another forum where videos will be presented. More valuable videos can command higher fees (if we could predict).

Someone might drive around a car that can be painted (if without getting ticketed).

Maybe we'll have a dance/picnic/arcade night/etc, and have some sort of sponsor or other pay for part of it. Maybe they can provide cups, napkins, etc with their logo. This would be money saved rather than extra income, but it affects the bottom line all the same, as it helps make the event more meaningful to those participating. That positive environment is good for Linux in the short run and in the long run. It means Felton might be more of a success than expected. It means those interviewed would be more enthusiastic. It means some amount of positive buzz will escape Felton or be taken back by some visitors or online viewers.

Of course, these are somewhat random ideas and may apply to very few types of sponsors. Some groups can pay a lot (commercial entities that benefit immediately/directly for example), but most probably don't want to pay very much. We should however tap into all possibilities as long as we do it without spoiling the event.

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Transparency. This is very important. It's not strictly necessary, but it's one of the things that can help increase trust and support. I am a big fan of transparency even if in some cases it might mean fewer donations. [Providing transparency can feel like a violation of privacy, so we'll see.]

More important than where the money goes precisely, however, is that some tangible benefit is being (or believed to be) achieved. This is FOSS though, so I have a preference for transparency on principle (because I think it works best for the most in the long run). We might also find that the community sees where the money is destined to go and suggests less expensive alternatives or more creative uses for the money. Right off the bat, if some people will be paid for their troubles, we should be up front and just allot some money for that. I know this can be touchy (especially since many will be volunteering), but I think most would donate recognizing the value of the labor. Results is what is most important. Also, we may find indirect ways to fund various things. Or be able to attach certain money makers to certain purposes.

People with accounting skills should play an important role here at least in setting up guidelines if not in actually puting up expense values.

We can call this section of the website (eg) "The Transparency Tab". Here, we can even feature FOSS accounting software or the like (or closed source Linux sw or services paid ads).

Transparency applies to expenses. It also applies to revenues. We should try and make sure that donors feel confident their contributions were taken into account properly.

One way is to list all donations with exact amounts. Some donations or parts of donations will be anonymous. Even in these cases, the user gets an account and a secret name (eg, Anonymous 834793) which they will find listed in the big list. Users should be able to specify what portion of their donations become public. Eg, you donate $100 but only want to appear as a Silver donor listed with $25 as a contribution. The remainder would be as Anonymous 32352346. Only you would know but others could still follow along and see the totals broken down. .. We'll have to code this. [Hopefully, I can code some of these things I am mentioning to get something going.. even if on my own website as proof of concept.]

In the end, this whole transparency work will have an added benefit of giving those out there insight into making something like this work, increasing the likelihood that this event will be cloned.

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People should be able to earmark donations if possible. We'll have to write up the (programming) support for that to make it manageable.

One form of earmark is for a LIN08 that extents beyond Felton. People can register with the main site and we can handle donations to them. We leverage the infrastructure we build (including trust) and charge a very nominal fee for the transfers. It's a win for everyone I think and provides yet another source of contributors.

I want as much sharing as possible to maximize resources. For example, rather than 10 different websites with little sharing and many left out in the cold, we can end up with 5 basic really good websites by combining developers but many clones (FOSS) usable by users everywhere (taking advantage of free online hosting or something else). Themes and tutorials per website templates will help each user customize for different looks (some will write interfaces to make this easy).

I'd like a series of contests (with $$) to get a bunch of people to build websites and artwork for this event. Even non Linux fans may get motivated to participate. These potential noobs learn that Linux is about leveraging the community maximally through FOSS and transparency, things that just do not work in the closed proprietary world.

I am quite off topic now (beyond fundraising) ..so there would be little harm in adding that, as these noob devs and pros dip their toes in the water, we should have resources to show that Business is alive and well on FOSS. The many volunteers volunteer because they can and because they have already received a lot, but many do make a business. [We list examples.. to-do: research this and gather articles and examples on topic.]

We might even have a section called "What Business Do You Want in Felton" where the community discusses FOSS businesses using the Felton theme.

..OK, I am getting a little crazy and way off topic.

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Last partly off topic comment:

For the website, have a section devoted to current important news. Keep it updated and changing. Don't overwhelm. Also, make sure we have a forum where anyone interested in helping can ask any question about the event. I'll volunteer to man IRC and patrol these sorts of forums as much as I can.

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Oh, and one more thing (on topic this time). Felton will fall short of the ideal in both fundraising and deliverables, but this will serve to increase the odds that the next big Linux city event down the line will be bigger.

I can see this being repeated month after month after month year round around the world with many people contributing a buck a month that automatically goes to the relevant city (or they pick based on which cities have the big party that month). If we stay with the LINdependence theme, then cities can pick as their month the month of the country's independence if they have one. Probably we will get other independence scenarios or other themes. In this case, "Linux Town" would still fit as an umbrella name.

[Here is a concept that may facilitate engaging groups such as some Windows/Vista users and some artists among others. This can add entertainment and content to LINdependence 2008 from Felton.]

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No, no, we aren't putting down Vista. We simply know that sometimes people have accidents and products get destroyed. You may have tried to appeal to the vendors that made or sold you the Vista CD but did not get very far.

Well.. during the week/month of X in Felton, we will be exchanging destroyed Vista CD's for a Linux CD or DVD that works. The CD/DVD will be a remaster of one of your favorite LiveCDs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveDistro with a deskop background wallpaper the recognizes your entry into the Felton X-change.

Only the first 1000 entries are guaranteed to get a remastered LiveCD/DVD at no charge.

Further..

We will award prizes for the best, funniest, saddest, or most heart-warming explanations of how your Vista disc got destroyed. Points awarded both for story content as well as visuals and props. .

Should you not be able to make it to Felton during the X, we will announce in the months preceding the event the shipping address where the "goods" can be shipped.

And if even this shipping doesn't work out for you, please send a video or pictures with your story through email. We want to try and help everyone and so will do our best to get a real LiveCD/DVD into your hands.

All entries will be recognized and given some sort of exposure on websites and through youtube vids (possibly making the late night news) presenting a great opportunity to actually "wow" your friends this time around and gain recognition for your artistic creativity.

Any further details or benefits will be posted on website Y. [Eg1, the precise categories and prizes. Eg2, ways in which for a nominal charge, we will further customize the LiveCD/DVD.]

Hurry, and start turning that horrible mishap into something positive and entertaining to the rest of us. You will be rewarded.

And don't be shy. Even innocent mistakes like this one will be forgiven: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVbf9tOGwno

[To-do: Design how the wallpaper will be created and how further the distro might be themed or otherwise customized. Put up a basic website. Write out more precise rules. Plan the various tools and ways that will be used to spread this message. Plan the Felton events related to this message. Decide how this particular LINdependence 2008 marketing event will interact with the others. Precisely define the target audience of course. Design the base of the Felton LiveCD/DVD's. These will probably be distros submitted by various communities. Consider extending the benefits to those that submit by (eg) giving discounts gift certificates to N friends of the entrant that can be used for discounts from various Linux related services such as (eg) special remasterings. Who would provide these services? We can try and find a group of experts to set up this sort of business so that locals can provide the services easily to those with gift certificates, and then build a directory of service providers... and many more details to be decided.]

I am thinking that LIN08 can act as a Talisman of sorts...there are dozens of organizations and causes that can be drawn to our event and make it "a happening" (caution, child-of-the-60's-on-board). This is a great idea Jose...now who can we draw in?

h

Too often it's the unsoiled hand that feeds The Critic's mouth.