[TriLUG] demoing F/OSS innovation(s)

Phillip Rhodes mindcrime at cpphacker.co.uk
Tue Aug 31 15:13:43 EDT 2004


Joseph Tate wrote:

> Well, we've had at least two presentations in the last year that I can
> think of off the top of my head: Gaming on Linux by Chris Knowles and
> MythTV by John Beimler.

I wasn't so much thinking about the regular meetings, but a special
event (somewhat akin to an installfest) with multiple "demos" going
on.  Something like what we might do if we had another Lulu Tech
Circus type event, but done "standalone."


>  Some of the
> functions of MythTV certainly can be done with proprietary software,
> but nothing so pollished or feature complete exists as far as I know.

Ok, yeah, something like that.

> 
> Some webapps that wow: NetJuke (web based mp3/ogg/wav/etc organization
> with streaming).  Gallery (photos and more).

Good stuff.

> How would you propose the demo go?  Video?  

I was thinking in terms of a live presentation.  Again, I have this
idea in mind of an "event" of some sort.  Although since you raised the
idea, maybe there are some ways we could do something, record it and
then provide the media somehow...  Something to chew on...

 > Is the premise of this
> discussion flawed?  Does a wide reaching F/OSS software package exist
> which has no competition from traditional shareware/nagware/commercial
> software packages?

I'm not sure it has to be that there is F/OSS that has *no* competition.
What I'd like to do is just show people some innovative, nifty, neat,
"gee whiz", etc. stuff from the F/OSS world.  If there's a regard in 
which some F/OSS package is better than it's competitor from the 
proprietary world, then show that.  Or maybe demonstrate to people
that they can, using F/OSS do things they may have thought were either
impossible, or prohibitively expensive.

By way of example, how about something like this: I'm pretty sure there
is software in the F/OSS world for making a motion detector out of
a webcam.  There is open source video streaming software, I do believe.
And there is asterisk. How about demo to somebody how they can use a 
webcam as a motion detector, and have their computer call them if it
detects motion.. and then provide a live stream from the camera, to
their browser?

In this case, none of the pieces is anything totally new, but the
cool part is being able to take pieces and put together something cool
with it.

Here's another thought: It would probably be possible to use
Asterisk and some home automation software ( and accompanying relays, 
blah) to allow you to do something like call your home phone number,
push a few keys, and turn on certain lights (or the coffee pot, 
whatever).  How about a demo of something like that?

Not so suggest than everything has to involve home automation,
or Asterisk.. those two ideas just happened to come to mind as cool
demos. Things of that ilk would probably be good for "joe public."

I'm sure there are plenty of other things as well, some more suited
for "geeks," some that would be right for "business" types, etc.


Anyway, like I was saying, the idea is still a little vague and
needs some fleshing out (assuming it has any merit at all).


TTYL,

Phil
-- 
Vote Badnarik for President 2004
www.badnarik.org

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