Andrew Black

Mer/Maemo.org had a table at the Florida Linux Show in Orlando this year and thinks could not have gone better.  Both I and GeneralAntilles were both there talking to people at the table.  GeneralAntilles did a great job of talking to people about not only what Maemo.org and the Nokia tablets are but what Mer is.  I would say that we had 10o to 200 people stop by our table,  some wanting to talk about a device they have or a device they want.  There was a lot of people also who had never heard of Mer or Maemo who wanted to find out what it was.  Of course we got lots of questions like Can Mer be ported to [Enter Device Name Here], a lot of the time the answer was no not yet but several people who are interested in getting Mer running on there device have stopped by #Mer ready to start working on a port to there device.

The Linux show was an over all success for both the show and for Mer in my option.  There was a lot of good speakers including my self at the show and tons of people to come listen to what we had to say.  The staff at FLS could not have been nicer.  They made sure everything we needed was taken care of.  I do have a few suggestions for them about the location of there show.  There was no good place to get food the only real option at lunch was a $10 Turkey Sandwich/Chips/ and soda.  I also never found anywhere else to get another soda.  By the end of my day I was hungry and thirsty.  In the future I hope they have better food options even if its just a guy there selling hot dogs and sodas.

I was happy to see at least one person from Maemo.org there that wasn’t involved in the Mer/Maemo Table.  Jeff Jackowski was there taking photo of the show and off my talk.  Once he gets those posted to him Flicker Account I’ll make sure to add a  link to them here.    There were lots of N8×0 devices there and lots of people commented that they had a 770 in a drawer somewhere.  I think Nokia needs to find a way to pull people who had a 770 but lost interested back into the community.  Several people said they would try to being there 770/N8×0 back to life with Mer.

The only thing I wish could have been better was my talk on What Mer is.  I’ll be posting the slides I used along with a post about my talk later.    If anyone has any questions about my time at FLS please let me know.