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Fun and Informative Way to Introduce Open Source?
jwg asks: "I work in an office environment where I provide technical services and solutions to my co-workers (as I am sure most Slashdot readers do at their respective places of employment). Once a month, we have a round-table meeting to discuss pressing issues in our office. At the beginning of these meetings, it is one person's job to provide some form of 'professional development', usually an activity or game to teach some skill, idea, or trend directly related to their job. My turn is coming up soon, and I would like to introduce my co-workers to the idea (and to some, the way of life) of Open Source. There are many examples of Open Source software and communities out there to reference (Mozilla, Wikipedia, MySQL and... oh yeah, Linux), but has anyone come up with or come across a method to introduce it in a quick, fun, and informative way to a wide variety of people each of which possess a even wider range of technical skill? Did I mention it has to be fun?"
Ask everyone in the group to imagine a simple piece of paper.
Ask them:
What would use a blank sheet of paper for?
What do you know about where the paper was manufactured?
What do you know about the inventor of paper?
There are few simple alternatives to paper. Sure there are whiteboards / chalkboards / computers / sheets of mylar, etc., but each has limitations that are not inherent to paper.
Ask them how they would feel if it suddenly cost $300.00 to purchase each sheet of paper simply because the biggest vendor decided that that was what they wanted to charge. What would they do to get around this barrier to their productivity. The alternatives aren't very convenient for most people. Would they look into making their own paper?
Then tell them that there is a community that is offering other ways to manufacture paper that drastically decreased the cost - back down to the previous rate - how would they feel about that.
Better still, what if that community were all volunteers, whose goal is to make access to this type of information / service / activity available to as many people as possible?
This is rather simplistic, and doesn't address a lot of what OSS/FOSS is about, but it is a simple way to introduce the subject.
It wouldn't hurt if you could download an Open Source paper airplane design so that they can build $300.00 paper airplanes at the end of your chat.
- A
I'd personally start by installing and putting Firefox as the default browser on their computers. If you have extra computers lying around, i'd set them up in your lounge or other central location with an easy distro of Linux installed(Mepis, Ubuntu).
Go to the w3.org and put Slashdot.org through the validator.
Most people outside of IT (and many who do work in IT) could not care any less about the politics of software. They don't really care about this "Open Source" thing. And why should they? What they care about are applications that install and work as close to flawlessly as possible (or at least allow them to accomplish their tasks with a minimum of problems). I really don't think you'll get much more than "Gee, that's interesting... By the way, after the meeting, can you come by my cube and show me what I'm doing wrong with this Excel macro?" If I where you, I'd "introduce" specific applications (like OpenOffice, Firefox, other more specific applications...), not the concept of "Open Source". The accounting / administrative / human resources / other non-IT folks cjust have other things to worry about.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I would shoot myself if I had to do this.
Prime examples of wasted time at the work place. You know what would make this even worse? Having to do something like this with co-workers you hate. Even so, I think I could make it fun.
"Today, were going to play some reality television. I want everyone to vote for someone to leave the office. Now, while this isn't indicative of that person losing his or her job... it just might help.
It's secret ballot... so have at it... I should also mention that not choosing another individual indicates you are not a "Team Player" and will be autmoatically chosen for not submitting a ballot."
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
How about some CD's (or wallet CD's) that have open source software on it. You can get them started with the OpenCD, then Damn Small Linux, then maybe Knoppix. Try demo'ing them.
Don't be a Hem, find some new cheese.
Introduce the staff to the fun and excitement of installing Firefox and using Extensions. Most of them don't require a great deal of skill and regardless of the industry you work in, many of them can be extremely useful. Adblock is an easy one. Mouse gestures could also be. Show the staff how to navigate the Extensions site and take them through the installation of a few, then encourage them to each go out and find an extension that would help them in their job.
This has a dual effect. It will increase the number of Firefox installs in your office (which will probably increase your job satisfaction as you decrease the spyware outbreaks you have to deal with) and will do the job of promoting open source software.
The problem with most open source software are that they are designed to elevate pain from working with closed source software. Open Source doesn't really give a person pleasure, just relief from pain. The trick is to figure out how using open source can actually give pleasure. You need to find tools and applications that actually can give people pleasure.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Make a list of popular, successful Open Source programs. For example:
Give a brief synopsis on each of them, and then ask how many of your colleagues have heard of one or more. Then throw a curve: Continue speaking, and itemize the cost per program by comparing with other examples of such software. (i.e. the latest edition of MS Office retails for almost a grand). Now say: "These programs and their alternatives are compatible, deployed in many hundreds of companies and countries. They have a loyal user base, are easy to use, and are well known for their professional quality.
One example I've found to be rather effective is compare it to medicine or food recipes. Ask them if they would buy a medicine that does not list the ingredients (hopefully most would answer 'no'). Then compare that to software that don't tell you what's in it. Not a perfect comparison, but I find this to be a good introduction for most non-technical people. A slightly better example might be to compare it to cars. Take Linux for example, when you buy a Linux-powered car, you have the permission to open up the hood, take the engine apart, fix it, enhance it, tweak it, and share your improvements with the other linux-car owners, thus making their cars better too. Compare this to a Microsoft car, where opening your hood will void the warranty.
So when the person falls and busts their ass you can say, "well if you don't like it, fix it!"
Then you try to do the same with the whiteboard turned around so that no-one can see what the cow-orker is drawing.. turn the whiteboard around and BAM everyone can see how freakin' insane it is to keep your software proprietary.
How we know is more important than what we know.
You could even configure your computer-on-a-stick to have multiple X sessions; one for Dad, running Icewm, one for Mom, running Gnome, and one for Junior, running KDE. No longer can Junior rearrange/delete the desktop icons that Mom needs to balance the checkbook.
Or set up your computer-on-a-stick with two video cards, along with two USB keyboards and mice, and show that you can have two people using one CPU at the same time.
Set up a dual-head system, and move windows from one monitor to the other. Lots of oohs and aahs with that one. (Of course you can do this, and far easier, with Windows and OS/X, but they don't know it.)
Virtual desktops.
Show 'em the recent Slashdot article(s) indicating that they'll soon be running Linux anyway, on their cell phones.
The Gimp.
lynx. Yes, lynx. As an "emergency" browser.
Firefox with extensions, particularly Adblock, maybe ForecastFox. Find as you Type.
Hack the code for ping with one of the attendees' name so it says something like "Jack's ping returns 64 bytes blah blah blah" and re-compile it in front of them. Many of them will be familiar with ping; now they know they can hack their tools as needed, as opposed to proprietary software.
Give each attendee an ice-cold Coke in a glass bottle, but charge $1 for the use of an opener. One of the attendees will whip out his Swiss Army Knife and defeat your monopoly on openers; that's the value of Open Source and competition.
Legos are always fun, but I don't know how you'd turn them into a lesson on Open Source.
I always talk about how open source at the moment is big in software (apart from wikipedia and a few others), but also should apply to other areas - especially teaching materials (I work in education). People often see the value of sharing valuable materials which teach a point effectively, but also allowing others to save teachers' time (which is very limited here in the UK) by adapting the materials themselves.
PDF is a good example of how not to publish teaching materials (unfortunately lots of people love to publish in PDF in education - oh why?) The IPPR (google for it - a left-wing Governmental policy thinktank) is waking up to this idea of open source for education and is starting to publish reports which advocate this idea. So finally, we may see the Government moving away from the old top-down (aka Cathedral) approach, which hasn't been at all effective.
Perhaps think about an area in the company where people could share information more freely?