CaffeBickford; Torontos first Open Source Caffe - the focus of nest Tuesdays meeting

[David J Patrick]

    First let me introduce myself. My name is David Patrick. I'm a 
filmmaker, with a background in radio and theatre, having filled a 
mind-boggling number of job titles on the way. Current title; Director 
of Photography.

    This spring I looked at my (badly run) corner store and said to 
myself "imagine if that was a caffe". After a whole lot of imagining, 
and a few carefully placed questions, I found that the location was 
available (the NE corner of Harbord & Grace). As they say "be careful 
what you ask for" I am now working my ass off to make this crazy dream a 
reality. Later today, I'll be going back in to make more progress 
drywalling the ceilings. whew !
    Caffe Bickford will be quite unlike anything ever seen; a 
comfortable community caffe, with internet & WiFi, software sales, music 
sales, event ticket sales, gadgets and other surprises. Everything we 
sell will be available on the (future) website. We'll offer excellent 
coffee, Italian munchies, pop & chips and an emphasis on high quality 
local goods. The Open Source philosophy will thrive as we share the 
code, while unapologetically trying to make a buck.

    The members of TLUG have graciously offered to let me bring this 
project in and make it the focus of this month's meeting. This will be a 
very good thing for the linux community; with a place to see it, get it, 
and test out new advances. For the vast majority, it will be the first 
sighting of a third OS. This is something that I can _only_ do with the 
support of Toronto's linux community (you) as I am a big dreamer, but 
not a systems administrator. I have set up a YahooGroup, and invite 
anyone interested to join in. (so far, that's only Adam, and he's not 
exactly active)
	http://groups.yahoo.com/group/caffebickford

   There are many aspects of the operation that will require linux 
expertise;

     _Thin-client_/_WiFi_Internet_Cafe_
A few hard-wired terminals and as many WiFi-ed Thinkpad PII266+s as the
market will carry.
       -will thin-client provide satisfying performance and admin
streamlining ?
       -will an X server work over 802.11b ? g ?
       -WiFi security issues
       -customer billing methods ? existing cafe software ?
       -save settings / home directory / email for members
       -offer optional desktop "starting points"
          (3 x "looks" (Win/ Mac/ linux))   (3 x "software environments"
(surf-email / office / game))

    _Linux_POS_
An open source retail hardware/ software environment, administrated via
remote, but usable by an average waiter
        -two  touchscreen POS terminals
            P166 64m ram
             ethernet, serial x 4, parallel, disk drive adapter
             Epson printers, cash drawers, card swipe readers
       - l-anePOS running on the cash registers (?)
       -GNUcash set up for business accounting
       -payroll / employee scheduling solutions sought

    _OSS_software_sales_
A retail outlet for open source software based on the cost of drives,
media and the time to produce the disk.
       -fresh burned and tested distros at low cost.

   _Music_
Enjoy great sound, local artists and legally burned music CDs
       -HD based jukebox, accessible to all terminals (PHPjuke ?)
       -ability to drag & drop, from the jukebox, to a desktop folder,
to be burned behind the counter.
          (only music that we have contractual permission to copy will
be on the jukebox.
            This will initially be local independent artists)
       -artist/ publisher payment methods
          (paypal / direct deposit / held in trust, other)

    _Security_
       -webcams
       -sensors
       -alarms
          loud
          silent
          911
          monitoring service

    The (as yet non-existent) website will provide focus and support for
the caffe and the community in general. We should use kernel 2.6.x for 
user responsiveness, scalability and 'cause Linus said so.
    We should consider web-based modes for many aspects of the cafe.
    There will be countless opportunities to sell related stuff and
services, once it is up and running.
    I look forward to hearing your input and ideas on Tuesday, and to 
seeing you in the caffe as customers and / or participants.
	thanks,
		may the source be with you,
djp





--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml