Episode: 848
Title: HPR0848: Alan Cocks, the info point project
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0848/hpr0848.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 03:27:54

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Now ...
Hello everybody, my name is Ken Fallon. I'm down here in the Vols of Oddcamp 11 and I'm
just snagging into you with Alan Cox. How are you doing Alan?
I'm fine, thanks Ken. Nice talking to you. Can you give a bit of background what your
booth is here?
Yeah, I have a small display called InfoPoint for information point for free software and
this is a project which takes information around to computer fairs. The computer fair I'm
interested in is my local one down the road from me. I live in Bracknell and the Bracknell
computer fair is held every month on the second Sunday and I'm there. I'm very fortunate
the organisers donate me a table every month if they have one spare and I turn up with my
chief of leaflets and CDs and it's at the sharp end of the Windows user fraternity and a few
of them a small percentage expect to see me there. Okay so what is the InfoPoint project?
The InfoPoint project is to take it's an outreach project to take information on free software out
to the computer fairs community and the attenders. A people who go to computer fairs are usually
fairly techy literate and they usually don't mind messing around and they are very good candidates
to sell for floss too. I don't know a lot of people are from the states so can you explain
what a typical computer fair might be? It's glorified pasting wallpaper pasting tables set
around a few hundred of these in a large hall. People pay a few pounds for entry and they get
traders selling them a fairly cheap, mostly hardware computing hardware items. Anything from
complete computers to power supplies and components. So for the specialist who wants to build a
computer and CDs and print them for the service? Yes, yes. Ideal thing for the InfoPoint project.
So the InfoPoint project, what did you set that up? This was nearly six years ago now, six years
ago, this come in Christmas. I didn't set it up. It was set up by someone called John O'Bacon
who presently works for less than Ubuntu. He was a writer, a journalist and he said come on,
guys, let's get out on computer fairs. I came into the scene a bit late in the day but my event,
which is so close to home, it's very convenient for me and I'm passionate about it,
quite passionate, it's very convenient. So that has endured whereas other people
perhaps find it more mature to go and stand talking to Windows Geeks all day.
I can imagine it's difficult. Yeah, I imagine there's a lot of hostility there over there.
They are very polite. I've had one comment in about five years
that said, oh, everybody uses Windows. I responded. I'm a bit ashamed. I wasn't quite so polite
as I should have been. Last night when I was going home in the cab, the taxi driver
said, couldn't get his head around what on camera was. Somebody had obviously brought a few
of us home already at that stage and he just couldn't understand why people were given
away for free. How do you get paid? I don't get paid in money terms. I just get a very good feeling.
It's a very good way for me and my technical brain to try and help the world become a better place.
Yeah, he could not get his head around the concert. But then do you make money? No, it's not about
making money. So I must admit I had a few fine songs. Very hard to explain. So put yourself in
that cab, given that you're sober. How would you convince just a person on the street,
okay, go with this? Some people in my life and I'm now 69 have helped me and I know when
these occasions were. So they were strangers and they've often helped me and some of those
occasions have been really important to me and they got no money for it. They just helped me
because I was another human being, a friend, a stranger and some people didn't help. Some people
really did help. So what I'm doing, I'm just paying so I'm adding something into the community.
It's a nice hobby. I love it. If I wanted to make money from it, I certainly would make money.
But I'd also give away stuff for free. But I'm not in it for the gratis end of it. I'm in it for
the freedom. There is a political, there's a social veneer, there's a social factor here.
So although it isn't a political movement, it's not a religious movement, it's not a social movement,
it is one of generosity and that's what I like about it. Very, very, very good. I try to use
the analogy to a library which kind of went somewhere into explaining it. Yes, it's important to have
a library there when you need it. And if you have lots of money, it's not so important. But of
course people need a leg up. Not just in a developed country, it's not just in a UK and USA.
People need to get themselves a leg up and they can do that with licensed software, which is licensed,
but licensed freedom wise. I think we've all listened to the Karen Sandler's and the free
isn't freedom. Her medical device or heart machine is running prepared to software. This is not good.
More and more, there's free software or there's software coming into our lives and I think this
is becoming a topic that we really need to start and people convinced about it. And I think the
InfoPoint project is a good way to go. So if somebody in their locality was trying to think,
okay, how can I get back to the community? How would we go about doing that?
The InfoPoint project specifically is at infopointproject.org slash wordpress. That will introduce
the project. The site itself, as ever, is not really up to date, but the philosophy is there.
And if they contact myself, Alan Cox, C-O-C-K-S, emails variously, then I'll certainly help them out
with leaflets and information and tips and hints. This would be something obviously that you'd like
to see spread across the world. It'll be great, yes. It's a very good way of the face-to-face
contact at a technical level, which is way below what you get in a Linux user group. The people I
talked to would never even use forums, really. And how would you say to a Windows user, go down the
Firefox route, use Thunderbird route or go hardcore, here's the Linux desktop? Gently, softly, softly.
I would say biomeans use the free software, use Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice. And then
when they're ready, when they realize there is an alternative, when they're confident in the
alternative and the support network around it with your alternative, then support them help them
to use something other than Windows. But I think a few of a lot of people may have is, okay, I
introduced this guy to Linux or open source, and now I'm going to be the support person for the
rest of Winfinity. How do you deal with that? I think you have to be aware that that is a possibility,
so if you're promoting this, you ought to promote it with a long stick. But if the friends I have
are, regard me as their support network. But they're very grateful, they're very grateful, and I do
get pretty good birthday presents from them. I don't want money, but it's very embarrassing when
they are very grateful. It's really nice, but you do gather a support network. Fantastic.
Listen, thank you very much for doing the interview, and I look forward to helping out the
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