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Tea party, results (fwd)





if someone is interested in more. I won't forward further stuff, it will
probably have a link from http://www.svlug.org

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 12 Nov 1998 09:31:21 GMT
From: Marc MERLIN <marc_merlin@magic.metawire.com>
To: svlug@magic.metawire.com
Subject: Tea party, results

The Silicon Valley Tea Party aka "The big 1998 linux revolt take II"
--------------------------------------------------------------------

I first  want to reassure  the worried reader: "Rick Moen  was there". David
Miller (big time kernel hacker and  former svlug speaker for those who don't
know him) gave us the pleasant surprise of also showing up.

This time  we had made  tentative plans a little  earlier than last  time (a
little more than 10 days vs a  few hours). Yet, much got decided a little at
the last minute (read one day in advance to a few hours before going there).

Once again, Ian Kluft  did a great job with keeping the web  page up to date
(sometimes by  the hour), and organizing  some of the stuff,  along with the
other officers.
We went there armed with about 500 Caldera and Suse CDs. Thanks to those two
for providing them in the first place.


So here's what happened:
Not to  say that big  brother is everywhere,  but short of  having microsoft
people monitoring  our lists and  newsgroups (with wouldn't  overly surprise
me, after all they also tried a  PR compain with magazines, posing as simple
users who  liked microsoft  products), since  the announcement  was somewhat
widely distributed with an announcement on freshmeat and the web page, I did
expect some  microsoft people  to know about  it, and to  be waiting  for us
there.

They  were actually  much smarter  than that,  and did  what I  hadn't quite
expected: two microsoft  people met us at  the cafe where we  had planned to
meet before going to the ms event.

Basically  they were  worried  to  have an  unknown  number  of linux  geeks
rampaging around their party, and kind of overwhelm the place.
Our goal wasn't obviously to ruin their  party, but it's true that having 30
to 40  geeky looking people, with  our crazy Sam Ockman  harassing people in
suit  with Linux  CDs  (just  kidding Sam  :-p),  might  have been  somewhat
disruptive.

Their offer was to give  us 5 SVLUG badges to let 5 of us  in at a time, and
let us  rotate. Their claim was  that you actually  had to have  received an
invitation from them before being able to RSVP.
This may  or may  not have  been true  even though  in practise,  anyone who
RSVPed in time did have a badge waiting for them at the entrance, whether or
not they had received an initial invitation of microsoft. 
Those who tried to RSVP later received an Email saying that they could still
register at  the door, and it's  only the last day  that their autoresponder
said that they event was full  (some thought that they just refused requests
from obvious linux people, like me when  I forgot to strip out my "Microsoft
is to software  what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking"  signature in my first
RSVP, but that  was just a conspiracy theory, someone  simply modified their
script on the event day to reject further RSVPs).

My point  is that it would  have been possible for  at least some of  us (as
long as it wasn't too obvious) to RSVP at the door and get a badge.

Their second option was to invite us all  to eat instead, so that none of us
wouldn't have to wait outside in the cold :-)
That was obviously a nice try, and we politely declined.

Of course the third  option would have been to ignore them  and try to sneak
as many of us in as we could have.

We however went with the first one because:
1) They appeared most  polite and friendly and didn't entice  us to go trash
   the place (which we never intended to do anyway)
2) I personally  thought (and others  most likely  also did) that  having as
   many of us inside as possible  could have indeed been somewhat to severly
   disruptive, and possibly annoying for their other guests, and we wanted
   to avoid that.
3) Since they  behaved politely and  in a civilized way  with us, we  had no
   reason to not return the favor, even if in this case we were dealing with
   microsoft


So, we  went together  to the place,  and about  10 of us  got in  (the five
badges, plus  those who had  registered sufficiently in advance  (Rick Moen,
Don Marti, and a few others)).

During that time, we had a talk  with the three reporters who where there (a
lady from  New York Times,  Yoshimoto-San, a Freelance  Japanese journalist,
and  a male  freelance journalist/photographer,  whose card  I unfortunately
didn't get).   
We answered their questions on linux,  and got some pictures taken.  The man
took a lot of  pictures, and some should turn out to be  very good, I wonder
where they're going to show up...

As for  the CDs, we  decided to give  them from outside,  while a few  of us
sampled the  microsoft food inside  while talking to  a few people,  some of
which were amused by seeing us (BTW the food was pretty good).
The good news  is that no one  seemed annoyed to see  us. People were either
indifferent or either amused, some even  happy ("it's cool that you guys are
here"). That in  itself proved that it  was a successful evening  because we
didn't apparently create negative feelings against us and linux.
Well, I can't  quite say that none  of the microsoft people  were annoyed to
see us, but if they were, they dealt  with it very well, and didn't show any
negative feelings.


The funny  thing is  that a  couple of  ladies inside  actually pet  tux, my
pinguin that  I was carrying  along with me. You have  to admit that  it's a
cute penguin :-)

After people  had gotten in,  and before they were  getting out, some  of us
that were outside started handing out  CDs to random people who were driving
by in their  cars, while the others  were just talking and  talking turns to
have a look inside (not that exciting by the way, but then it wasn't meat to
be in the first place).

We also took  some really cool pictures,  like one with Tux in  front of the
microsoft  logo  on  their door,  and  one  with  a  linux CD  in  front  of
microsoft's second  'o'. Those were taken by  the professional photographer,
so I don't yet know where they're going to show up (please, Email me if you
have his card and Email). 
I personally shot  a roll and I should  have the pictures on my  web site by
98/11/12 late in the evening (sorry, my camera isn't digital...).


After most people got out and had a  second shot at getting a CD from us, we
left for a  local Pizza &alef; gogo. Some  of us took a  microsoft gift (cocktail
glass and t-shirt, both with microsoft logo). I personally got neither since
I didn't quite see where I could have  used them with them having a logo and
all.

Then, some of the microsoft guys called the pizzeria where we were to pay us
a  round of  beers and  sodas,  which was  obviously  nice of  them, and  we
eventually headed home.

Conclusion: this definitely  was a fun evening. As Ian said  the outcome was
totally unexpected,  but it turned out  very well. We spread the  word about
linux, and among  the CDs we gave  out, some people have to  install it, and
some of those may even come see us during future meetings.

I  have to  say that  the microsoft  people were  really cool  with us. They
behaved much more  intelligently than the Fry's manager who  called the cops
to have us thrown out during the Win98 launch a few months ago.
Don't take me wrong, I still think their OSes are crap, along with many (but
not all)  of their software  products. I still think they're  a monopolistic
company which  thrives to crush  their competition without worring  too much
about laws, yet they are also very careful at not getting bad press and they
did let  us get away with  things like taking  pictures with tux in  from of
their logo (no one even told us anything).

Thanks all those who came, and see you all next time.
Marc Merlin
-- 
"Microsoft is to software what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking"
 
Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/ (friendly to non IE browsers)
Finger marc@merlins.org for PGP key and other contact information

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