Month: September 2010

Software Freedom Day 2010 – Shantou chapter

Posted on by Pockey Lam

Thanks to the good work from SFDChina, there were near 60 Software Freedom Day events hosted in different cities around China this year!  Some events had to be postponed either a day earlier or a day later due to Nanking Massacre Memorial Day conflicting date. Fred and I celebrated the D-day by joining forces with the one hosted by Shantou University.

As mentioned in my previous post, the event was organized by the Linux Association from Shantou University (STU). It started in the morning with an outdoor exhibition to demonstrate Free Software and followed with presentations in the evening.  Fred gave an overview on why Software Freedom matters, a quick history review of Free and Open Source Software and talked about how the audience could get involved and contribute to the community. Then I introduced some cool Free Software that I use everyday and demonstrated how FOSS helped me to get things done.  Unlike other events I have been involved with in China, we had the pleasure to talk to very active spectators asking plenty of questions such as:

  • How can Free Software sustain without any financial support from companies?
  • Which field / area do GNU/Linux systems apply to?
  • Knowing that Free Software is so cool, why the market share is so little in China?
  • How can we increase the market share of Free Software in China?
  • What are the benefits to use GNU/Linux systems and Free Software in terms of software development?
  • Do you think Free software will dominate the world market in the future?

The event ended with some great performances given by two other STU associations, namely the Guitar Players Associations and the Magicians Associations. This was totally in line with the purpose of SFD which is to make the day as constructive and fun as possible! We totally enjoyed our Software Freedom Day, how about you?

Outdoor exhibition to demonstrate Free Software
Who says Chinese students are shy? At least not the ones in STU!
Presentations given by Fred, Bean and myself in the evening
I introduced a lot of cool Free Software to STU students!
Performance given by Microphone who is also an Android developer

GNOME.Asia Committee 2010

Posted on by Pockey Lam

committeeOne of the main objective of the GNOME.Asia Committee, and the summits we’ve organized every year since 2008, has been to build a stronger GNOME community in Asia.  Thanks to the COSCUP / GNOME.Asia 2010 event in Taiwan this year, we’ve moved a step closer to our goals and recruited five more members from various Asian countries to join our Committee. They are:

Welcome aboard!

Since early September we have resumed our weekly IRC meetings and started planing for the next GNOME.Asia Summits. It’s a real pleasure to be working with all of them and I can already feel the GNOME.Asia community getting stronger as more passionate people are joining the organizing team! One of the actual focus these past two weeks was to get a pre-event survey out and better address the needs, interests and desires of potential future participants. While still in its “beta version” we’ll be starting to approach some key people we would like to see involved in the next chapter of GNOME.Asia Summit and refine it. Planned public release is early October, so please stay tuned and do help us to get your ideas counted!

SFD preparation meeting@STU Linux Association

Posted on by Pockey Lam

After moving to Southern China, we have been attempting to meet with local FOSS communities. Finally we got to visit the Shantou University (STU) and talk to the core members of Linux Association, one of the winners of  Software Freedom Day Innovative event award 2009 from sfdchina.org.

Since its establishment in 2005, STU Linux Association has been hosting regular meeting on a weekly basis (except holidays and exam period). They strive to introduce members of different FOSS applications and give technical lessons that their core members are familiar with. They even have members dedicating to help students with difficulty in installing Linux.

It was a great pleasure to meet with all of them due to their enthusiasm towards FOSS. Some of them have been the core members for 4 years, that’s usually not the case in other universities I’ve met. This year they are planning for a double capacity SFD event. Fred and I promised to support them with more goodies and be the SFD speakers. We are looking forward to celebrate SFD with Shantou University and wish everybody Happy Software Freedom Day!