First sorry for any english mistakes I'd make ;)
A somehow late report about the Paris LinuxExpo & LinuxWorld trade show.
We must first thank all volunteers of APRIL, ANFA, local LUGs and other friends of the FSFE and the GNU projects, who helped us on the joint FSFE France, APRIL and ANFA booths.
I'm writing down things I recall from the show, and thus this report is not really a complete detailed report of everything which happend. I was very busy on the booth and had no time to visit the rest of the expo. I spent much of my time on the "non-profit" part of the show.
First, some pictures taken by Rodolphe Quiedeville: http://rodolphe.quiedeville.org/photos/linuxexpo2002 (as you can see, we enjoyed a lot ;)
The mood was, at least on the non-profit booths, as every year, very festive. We had a very strong presence with a lot of associations (a whole row of booths occupying the back of the expo)... all non-commercial, and that's nice sometimes ;)
One couldn't miss our presence and I admit it was quite impressive, to see this row: people must have felt the weight of the community (more than 50 volunteers at least). I listed the different booths (I may forget some still) : Videolan, APRIL + FSFE France + ANFA + Sherpath.org (1/2 day), KDE, AFUL, ObjetWeb, Technop�le Logiciels Libres Soissons, Debian, TuxFamily, Parinux, Speka, Easter-Eggs.org, OpenBSD, ABUL+Abuledu, Linux-Arverne, Linux-Nantes.
The APRIL + FSFE France + ANFA booth was big enough to hold us all, and also to store stuff, and clothes of friends passing by.
I should point out that it was so nice to have the Lolix booth in front of ours, which allowed us some nice activities (lunch with pat� and vin rouge, chairs, music, etc. ;).
About the contacts, as always, a bunch of interesting people that we met (software authors, managers of companies or organisations, end users, ...). In my mind, we had less need for describing what free software is to complete newbies... Either everybody now is quite aware of free software, or we didn't let enough room for questions... but I tend to think it's the first option. People are much more and better informed on the subject of free software. Some were coming to have an update on the software patents issue, or to know exactly what we exactly do at APRIL (were they looking for a LUG, or to have more indepth on APRIL). Many people coming were not computer professionals. Many people there came since they were trying to launch free projects, but didn't really know how to do so...
A lot of the people we met were very interested by the ANFA project, from what I noticed. Cooperation with the southern countries with free software seems to attract interesting of a lot of people.
The various items did sell quite well (TShirts, pin's, FSF books, etc.), which helps to reduce the stored materials since last years.
We registered a lot of membership renewals, and contacts with new members.
We were also happy to see people living far from Paris, or abroad, who had come for the occasion. That was really nice too.
We hosted Sherpath.org who did a demo for the first time to the public of their new free groupware tool... Unfortunately I had no time to see the details :(
RMS' conference : it was free (as beer) and a big success: more than a thousand people I think... but I couldn't listen to the entire speach... He ended it singing the Free Software Song ;)
Stallman then came on the booth (and Lolix's too), to have a break and chat with some more people... The guru did not attract crowds like two years ago... but maybe because he cut his hair, and few recognised him ? ;)
The companies present at the expo seemed very busy (including those selling non-free stuff)... is this a good sign from the market ? Anyway, the developers and friends of APRIL who were on their companies booths were sometimes very much unavailable, and sometimes people kept looking for them even though they had taken days off ;)...
We should note also that many companies booths were much smaller than those of the non-profit associations or groups ;)
The promotional stuff was very rare on the booths (times are harsh! one would say).
We perpetuated the activist tradition of people preventing suits to make business calmly with our small demonstration on the subject of software patents. It was a good success, even if only few companies managers joined in leaving their booth. Some of them may recognize themselves on the pictures. Thanks to them for their courage. We distributed some 500 leaflets to visitors (see www.april.org/~mad/systems01fr.pdf).
Transfert.net reported the event on their news site... Maybe other news reports?
A small regret: no Gimp or Gnome booths, for instance... Those interested might contact us for next year's edition.
There was a huge diner organized by LinuxFr... but can't give details since I wasn't there :(
We should also note a simulation of the french presidential elections that was run by easter-eggs.org. The winner was Noël Mamére (green party), whichever scrutiny method was used (details on http://www.entrouvert.org/presilections.py). This might be linked to the candidate's positions about Free Software or software patents (my personal addition: although he didn't respect his promise to ask the government to change its policy about software patents, although he announced it when he met RMS).
It should be noticed that next edition of Paris Linux Expo is not guaranteed yet... but we'll be there if it happens.
And, finally a big thanx to the team who organized the whole thing and notably Loïc Bernable who synchronized everything with the people of Sky Events.
Best regards,