Hi all, We are all hopefully aware by now that Software Freedom Day is this Saturday, and Free Software Melbourne will be putting together a games corner.
I think it would be most interesting to people if we can make the games corner as interactive as possible. People should be able to sit down at a laptop preconfigured to play a bunch of games, and try them out. There should be local game servers for multiplayer (LAN-only seems likely unfortunately), and a wireless network so people can play with laptops that they brought along with them. If somebody doesn't have a game everyone else is playing installed but want to try it on their machine, a samba server should be present so people can download a bunch of free software games for any major platform they happen to be running (complete with source code). It would also be awesome if a laptop were to be hooked up to a projector so people who don't feel confident playing at the event can at least watch somebody else. Otherwise, if everyone instead just uses their own computer to join in, the projector could be used to display some server stats or some such. Here's what we've got to work with: The location will provide 5 modular desks, but no computers. There may be extremely minimal Internet access, so it's probably best that we assume there is none for planning purposes. I will have my personal laptop, configured as a multiplayer host and samba server. I also have two old EeePC 701s, and *maybe* one HP Atom-based netbook which people could use if they didn't bring a laptop with them. That's it. These are all small low-res screens, so much so that smc won't even load on any of them (although I suspect they could run older games like Abuse just fine). If someone can help out by bringing along a few external LCDs, keyboards, mice, or better laptops, that would be terrific. Additional Kensington locks would also be appreciated if anyone has a few spare that we could borrow. Alternatively, if somebody has the capability to bring in desktops - better still! I should be able to bring in an 8-port gigabit switch (which hopefully is enough ports?), and an old wireless access point (should be 802.11n though). Unfortunately I don't have a portable projector. I may be able to borrow one, but I won't be able to find out until Thursday if that's possible - and I'll be struggling to bring everything else in without a car as it is (so we can't count on it). If anyone has one that they can bring in on the day, that would be really awesome. Ideally, people won't just walk away having had some fun with a variety of single and multiplayer games, but will also have a basic understanding about free software and why it's important. To that effect, I was thinking that maybe somebody could make some flyers or something that people could take home and read if they are interested in learning more. Alternatively, if most people are going to be downloading a bunch of games from a Samba server, perhaps we just throw a PDF in the folder along with the other files? That certainly seems the easiest and most environmentally friendly option. It would be great if somebody can take on this job of throwing something together - or lifting it from a wiki or some such where the text is licensed to allow such distribution. There's not a lot of time left to get things organised, although I don't see there being anything here as particularly challenging to take care of - especially if a few people can help out. If anyone would like to volunteer at any stage on the day to help people get their computers networked, configure their games to connect to the servers, talk about free software, maybe sell some free software stickers or just hang out on the servers to be cannon fodder, please don't hesitate to say so. :) Regardless of being able to help out or not, I hope to see you all there. Cheers, Adam
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