“FOSS for the people, make IT FOSSible”
Software Freedom Day (SFD) was held on Saturday 16 September and saw teams from across the world organizing activities and events to educate the public on the value of using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in every walk of life ‘ from education, to government, in business and at home.
We were curious about the different types of celebrations being held around the world, and so we gathered reports from three continents to give you first hand accounts of the sights, sounds and general happenings on the day the world is inspired by free (as in beer) software.
Nepal
Hempal Shrestha
FOSS Nepal
On 16 September, Yala Maya Kendra at Patan Dhoka became a melting pot for hundreds of like-minded FOSS enthusiasts as they celebrated Software Freedom Day for the second year in Nepal. The day was the ideal platform to showcase their creativity and explore new possibilities in the field of FOSS.
The event was organized by the FOSS Nepal community and supported by various organizations including BellaSAP and MPP. Around one thousand participants from different colleges, the private sector, government offices, civil society and media participated in the daylong celebration.
The celebration began with an informal opening at 10:00, followed by an array of different parallel events throughout the day. The paper presentation segment had a total of nine treaties on FOSS delivered by students and faculties from different colleges and other FOSS enthusiasts; there was also a section devoted to the installation, demonstration and troubleshooting of Linux distribution like NepaLinux, Ubuntu and Open Solaris and FreeBSD; as well as the exhibition of FOSS projects developed by different colleges and FOSS professionals. The FOSS Nepal community also made an appeal to government, civil society, educational institutions and other stakeholders demanding FOSS and open content be given first priority in their policy and implementation. During the day, a declaration in English and Nepali, was drafted to outline these issues.
Another highlight of the day was called the ‘Open Space’ discussion, where participants could initiate a chat about new projects and garner support from other participants or share their projects or express their views and make suggestions regarding FOSS. The screening of a FOSS-based documentary called ‘CodeBreaker’, a FOSS IT quiz, the distribution of OpenCDs and Ubuntu CDs, and a food festival were other highlight of the SFD celebrations.
The day came to an informal close with the distribution of certificates and prizes, and a group photo session of the FOSS Nepal community.
Hempal Shrestha and Subir Pradhanang, founding members of the FOSS Nepal community expressed their delight at the excellent turnout and participation in the event and asked all community members to ensure that the motto of the FOSS Nepal community be achieved: ‘FOSS for the people; Lets make IT FOSSible’.
South Africa
Ana Dani
OpenCafe, Potchefstroom
The team at the OpenCafe were preparing for weeks before Software Freedom Day, and it was worth our while as the day turned out to be a huge success. Our first barcamp had about 60 visitors, we registered around 15-20 geeks with the Geek Freedom League (GFL), listened to speakers on interesting topics around open source software, open content and the role of art and artists in today’s communities.
This year the Geek Freedom League funded all marketing materials and catering, we gave away many OpenCDs, Ubuntu CDs, and gave T-shirts and geek bags to the local geeks who registered with the GFL on the day. Reedflute Software Solutions provided the venue and all equipment for the presentations.
We had a set program to follow which included more technical talks and installs in the morning. The first talk of the day by Eugene Coetzee, was based on the questions our local geeks submitted to us in the run-up to the event - Eugene focused on techniques for using the internet to find answers to Linux-related questions. Later in the morning Bob Jolliffe from Freedom to Innovate South Africa gave a talk on the negative impact of software patents on innovation.
Since one of our most important projects is ArtMarketOnline, a project where we empower creators by providing them with tools, such as FOSS and Creative Commons licensed content to practice their trade; we devoted the afternoon to art, and how artists can benefit from participating in online communities and open content projects. The afternoon was also a musical journey introducing us to the music and traditions of East and West Africa.
In the first talk of the afternoon Anna Dani introduced the local artists to Creative Commons projects and open licenses. She also spoke about artists who had participated in the Wired CD and ccMixter projects.
Following the talk, we were treated to a poetry recital by the members of the local group, Muse Poesy.
Later Peter Okeno On’gare, director of the local percussion group, Ngoma Vuma Afrika, talked about the significance of music, and specifically percussion instruments in Kenyan society. Peter ended his talk explaining to artists about the skills he and his group learnt by participating in the ArtMarketOnline project.
After the talks and discussions we showed a documentary film about well-known Senegalese musician, Baaba Maal talking about the responsibilities of artists in Senegalese communities.
The day ended with percussion music by Ngoma Vuma Afrika - singing South African and Kenyan songs. To see photos of the Software Freedom Day celebration at OpenCafe, click here.
Daniela Faris
iCommons, Pretoria
Software Freedom Day in Pretoria was attended by a variety of characters, from geeks, to students, to government officials and non-profit organization representatives, to open content advocates like Kerryn McKay and Andrew Rens from the African Commons Project, and myself.
Held at the high-tech Department of Science and Technology building, this was the perfect setting for the meeting of the already converted FOSS enthusiasts, and those who always thought that ‘Ubuntu’ is an African philosophy and ‘Debian‘ a coastal South African city you visit when go on holiday. The day was not only an enjoyable event, but also informative, so those we were previously FOSS ignorant were surely better educated by the end of the day.
The morning’s proceedings consisted of different presentations. These included Kerryn McKay and Andrew Rens’ presentation on Creative Commons. Kerryn demonstrated the multimedia curriculum ‘Copyright, Copyleft and everything in between.’ The training material has been developed for 15-year old learners, and gives an overview of the history of copyright, the uses of open source software and open content from an African perspective.
Dwayne Bailey from Translate.org discussed the issues around translating software to allow all non-English speakers access to technology in South Africa. Anna Bodimo, chairperson and co-founder of LinuxChix Africa, told the audience about the organization which is one of the fastest growing female networks around the world. Her presentation was titled ‘Cinderella or Cyberella? Why the issue of women in FOSS is relevant in this era’, and advocated that women need to move away from being labeled ‘administrator’ (Cinderellas) towards fulfilling the role of technical developers (Cyberellas).
A Freedom Toaster was in full use at the venue, with people queuing to burn free software onto the CDs they had brought along. Computers were set up to display various open source operating systems. Workshops and demonstrations were also held to aid users with tools such as OpenOffice and open content management systems, Apache Pluto and Gnome for end users. ‘Elephant’s Dream’, the first film created with open source software, and ‘Cosmic Africa’, were also screened.
Sangonet passed around a petition, requesting government to increase the adoption of FOSS in public service. Read this to find out more about the petition.
Uganda
Evelyn Namara
LunixChix Uganda
LinuxChix Uganda together with the East African Centre for Opensource Software (EACOSS) organized a fabulous event on Software Freedom Day, and was attended by about 60 people and about 10 facilitators.
The LinuxChix set up the venue and connected about 20 machines, which were pre-installed with different distros of Linux, ranging from Suse, Xandros, Ubuntu and Debian, among others. This allowed people to try out the different versions and ask questions about how it all worked. We also had an install fest where we helped participants install distros of their choice onto their machines.
We organized a table for software distribution, where we had distros like Ubuntu, Fedora core 5, Suse, Damn Small Linux, Ark linux, Xandros. The software could also be won by the participants through the various quizzes and raffles we organized.
During the day we held a challenging quiz competition: a panel of judges set some simple and some more complex questions regarding FOSS. Two teams of five volunteers were set up, one named ‘Team Ubuntu’ and the other ‘Team Suse’. Team Ubuntu eventually won the quiz, and the prizes were well worth the brainpower exerted! Three members of the winning team were awarded a free course of their choice at EACOSS. The other two members were given free internet access for a month. And even the losing team didn’t walk away empty-handed, they were awarded consolation prizes of SFD t-shirts.
A raffle was also held, we had participants buy tickets at a small price and later we had a draw where prizes such as USB sticks and a wireless keyboard and mouse were won.
All in all, SFD in Uganda was a lovely day, full of fun and learning. We are still compiling photos, which we will share with you to see for yourselves how successful the day turned out to be.
Brazil
Software Freedom Day celebrations at the University Center Feevale, in the city of Novo Hamburgo, state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil was very well attended.
The event was organized by the Libre Software Users Group (SoftwareLivreVS), and this is an account of the day from three members who attended and helped organize the event.
Adriano Gomes
I arrived at the event venue around 10:00, to help organize the room and the details for the event. Feevale was very efficient and had already taken care of everything, from the equipments’ location and installation, to electrical and logical infrastructure. A separate space was created for the talks, with a projector and chairs. In the rest of the room, there were 9 computers with internet access, which were used to present free software to the event participants, as well as another projector and an audio amplifier, used for demonstrations, games and video exhibitions.
Around 13:30, people started arriving, even before the official opening time of 14:00. More and more people arrived. In my opinion, we had the most people participating in this event, I think there were around 120 people.
The main activity which I took part in during the event was talking to people interested in free software for schools. I had the privilege of talking to the main coordinator of the information labs of more than 200 public schools in our region. I demonstrated GNU/Linux using an Ubuntu LiveCD, and I pointed out some educational free software projects, which we installed during the demonstration (among them, there were KTurtle and GCompris).
Besides the practical demonstration, which showed the technical characteristics of the system, we talked a lot about free software philosophy and its definition. I explained the four kinds of ‘freedom’ and how it all can be applied to public administration of students’ education, and can save a significant amount of money for schools. We talked about free software for schools for about two hours.
During the rest of the event, I talked with people from our group who I still haven’t had the opportunity to meet in person ‘ we communicate through a mailing list of about 90 members. I demonstrated XGL and showed the Elephants Dream movie, which people found very interesting.
My general evaluation of the event is that this was the best event SoftwareLivreVS has organized, despite it being formed a little of a year ago. I believe the contacts we made will have a very good impact on free software adoption in the region, and I’m particularly interested in keeping contact with schools, because I think this is a great opportunity for spreading the word about software freedom to other people, and to keep our group growing.
Thanks to everybody who participated and to those who helped organize the Software Freedom Day 2006.
Marcos Barbosa
At SFD 2006, I presented the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project test board, running SlackwareOLPC 1.0.0; a port of Slackware made by myself for the OLPC machine (that I hope will replace Fedora in the official project). There was a huge interest in the project, and attracted the interest of ‘Jornal NH’, a popular local newspaper.
I explained the machine and distro’s characteristics, the problems I faced (in the distribution and the machine), and the modifications to be made for version 2.0, which should be released during Fórum Internacional Software Livre (FISL) 8.0, in April 2007.
Mírian Bruckschen
This year, SFD had the most participants than ever before - by the time I arrived at the event (around 1:30pm), there were already many eager participants and volunteers milling around the venue and the numbers grew as the day went by. Diversity-wise, I guess we were able to gather together many different people from the local community: students from the university where the event was located, many teachers, families, IT professionals and people who were just curious and wanted to find out more about FOSS.
We distributed about 120 Ubuntu CDs, including Kubuntu and Edubuntu, and more than 80 Kurumin CDs. Kurumin is a Brazilian distro, and is very popular here, especially with people who don’t really know much about Linux. Márcio, Willian, I and other volunteers stood at the door, asking people to sign an attendance list and we handed out these CDs. Everybody took at least one Kurumin and one Ubuntu CD and we noticed that many people wanted the 64 bit versions this time. The CDs were distributed very quickly, especially the Edubuntu CDs as there were many education professionals at the event.
It was the coolest of all the events we have organized so far. We had many activities taking place in parallel sessions, but the demonstrations and talks were the most interesting ones to me. At times the large room we occupied was crowded with people, as you can see in the photos. We invited some people to take part in our free software users group and at our next event ‘ and there were even more people who showed genuine interested and volunteered to be part of this group too. We were also really impressed as we were also able to organize the biggest number of volunteers from within the existing group to help out at the event. The whole event was a very cool and rewarding experience.