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Welcome to the Silicon Valley Linux Users Group

Linux -The Operating System of the 21st CenturyTM

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Silicon Valley Tea Party
Wednesday, November 11, 1998

The Linux revolution continues...

teaser slide show This was originally proposed on the SVLUG list as the "Boston Tea Party, Penguin Style." The event was a success. More details below. (We'll talk about this briefly at the Dec 2 SVLUG meeting before Richard Stallman begins his presentation.)

In commemoration of the 225th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, and to keep up the pressure on Microsoft, Linux users were encouraged to attend this party for the new "Microsoft Silicon Valley Developer Center" in downtown Palo Alto. (This "arrive as a large group" event was like the "Great Linux Revolt of 1998" back in June.)

Before the event, SVLUG members were given these instructions:

We will be meeting 5:30pm at the University Coffee Cafe at 271 University Ave., in Palo Alto. We will head over to the event at 5:50. (It officially begins at 6pm.)

It's suggested that you wear a Linux t-shirt, but wear a long sleeved shirt or jacket to cover it up, so you can easily gain admittance. You might also want to bring a small bag to put Linux CDs in. And if you have scotch tape, and tea bags, bring those. We will be taping the tea to the CDs (well, some of them...) as a symbolic gesture.

Remember, the party is a Microsoft party in celebration of their new developer support center here in the Valley. We are attending as members of the computing community in the Valley. We are friendly computer professionals. We want the other guests to like us. Only the MS officials should be annoyed, seeing penguins on T-Shirts and Linux CDs all over.

Everyone did an excellent job!

There were reporters from the New York Times and Nikkei (Japan) there. They seemed to have a good time interviewing everyone. The Times took a lot of pictures too. (They'll let us know by e-mail when to expect the story.)

We will add individual reports here as they get mailed in. In general, it was a success. We handed out 400 Caldera and SuSE Linux CDs outside the party, to party-goers and passers-by.

The Microsoft people knew we were coming because of all the online attention - we expected something like that. There were surprises for us - they said they appreciated our instructions for our people to be cool. They were cool about it too.

Though there wasn't room to let everyone in, they had pre-printed 5 badges that we could take turns letting 5 people in at a time. The rest handed out CDs outside. We made sure not to block the sidewalk or the entrance. The Microsoft people thanked us afterward and bought a round of beers and sodas for everyone keeping themselves under control. (Yes, you read that correctly!)

More details will be posted as people e-mail in their reports and upload their pictures.

Reports from Participants

Thanks to the coverage or links we've received from

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