Month: May 2012

SFD Countdown ready!

Posted on by Pockey Lam

Celebrate SFD with us on September 15! The SFD countdown is ready for usage in English. We are therefore informing translators of 2011 and also people willing to add a new language that translation can start right now. All the instructions are available on the wiki at this page: http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/CountDown.

For those who already want to add the countdown on their page/blog/website the code is almost the same as last year (we’ve chosen a smaller size image this year) and has the same support for time zones. So if for example you’re living in Paris (GMT+2/UTC+2 that would be) then the code to add is: <a href=“http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/”><img src=“http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/countdown/banner1-UTC+2-en.png” border=”0″ width=”160″ height=”90″ alt=”Celebrate SFD with us on September 15!”></a>

Should you want to run the script from your website and customize it to your liking you can find the source code here and you’ll need to add a cron job to run it every 15 minutes if you want to support all time zones. Else every day at 1am is probably fine. Full support available from our mailing list!

Call for proposals to host SFD Summit 2012

Posted on by Pockey Lam

Digital Freedom International (Aka Software Freedom International) is proud to announce it will start co-organizing Software Freedom Days under the name of SFD Summit with one local team each year starting this year, and therefore we are inviting local organizers to submit proposals to host our upcoming and first SFD Summit around September 15th 2012.

The purpose of co-organizing such an event is to raise the profile of our celebrations while bringing a public space for discussions about the future of our movement. Over the past two years DFI/SFI has been through important changes in its governance such as expending community involvement through various committees, tightening our budget to remain cash positive, surveying SFD organizers and enhancing the team pack to enable teams to reuse the materials they receive, just to name a few of our efforts. It is now time to raise collaboration efficiency by getting together!

While this will be the first occurrence of a SFD Summit we are still very open on the details and expect proposals to enhance our views on the matter. Our current vision is to initially organize a great local SFD bringing in international speakers and attracting both sponsors and media attention, thus boosting the reputation and influence of the selected local organizer. Furthermore an extra day or two should be planned to work on the year ahead, programs and actions which could be run under the DFI umbrella and status updates on ongoing activities such as software development, infrastructure, marketing and fund raising campaigns.

If you are interested in hosting the upcoming SFD Summit in September 2012 please submit a formal proposal to board (at) softwarefreedomday (dot) org before July 1, 2012 Sunday UTC 2359. The proposal should address all of the relevant topics listed below:

  • Introduction of the country / city / organizer – why is this a good choice?
  • Recommended venues and logistics
  • Internet access
  • Accommodation choices
  • Local 1 day tour
  • Local community / government / industry support
  • Detail budget estimation and potential local sponsors

The event is recommended to run for at least 2 days in mid September 2012, with a combination of parallel tracks (at least 2 tracks). The planning sessions for SFD contributors should not conflict with other SFD sessions. Other key points which will be taken into account when choosing a proposal, are listed on the Requirement List page . Please check it out when putting together your proposal and feel free to contact sfd-discuss mailing list (or the board) if you have any further question. Also note that all profits from the summit will go to the DFI to further help our actions. We are looking forward to receive your proposals!

Culture Freedom Day is Today!

Posted on by Pockey Lam

The day to celebrate has finally arrived and we (DFI) are proud to announce a total of 19 events worldwide with amazing programs for this first edition of CFD. Spreading on all continents and even in virtual worlds we hope that there is an event for you and if not, hopefully you can get ready for next year and have something running in your area. We are already working with several organizations to try to make it easy to find free culture artists around the world and look forward to build on this successful beginning. So for now let’s just enjoy the show and celebrate Free Culture together!