Tag: SFD

…and today is Software Freedom Day!

Posted on by Pockey Lam

For its fourteenth edition the Digital Freedom Foundation is happy to celebrate Software Freedom Day! At the time of this writting we have 112 teams listed on the wiki and about 80+ events registered. Over the year we’ve notice that this “double registration process” (creating a wiki page and then filling the registration form) is a bit difficult for some of our participants and we wish to change that. In the plan for the coming months we plan to have a single registration process which will in turn generate a wiki page. We also want to display the event date as some of us cannot celebrate exactly on this international day due to local celebrations or other reasons.

Never the less please do look on the map and in the country listing and find an event in your area. If there is none, maybe it’s a good opportunity to start an event with your community! And then join us and celebrate!

Happy SFD to all!

Celebrate your SFD event this Saturday! Register now!

Posted on by Pockey Lam

web-banner-chat-register

The The Digital Freedom Foundation is very happy to announce that its fourteenth edition of Software Freedom Day will be celebrated this coming Saturday on September 16, 2017. If you haven’t registered your team yet it’s time to do it now!

So as usual registering an SFD event is as simple as 1-2-3:
1. Create a wiki account if you don’t already have one
2. Create a wiki page in your area under this page
3. Go to the registration page to register and let us know exactly who and where you are.

At the end of all this you’ll appear on the SFD 2017 Map here with all the other teams and be easy to spot.

We want to thank our usual sponsors Google, Linode, Canonical, the FSF and FSFE. We would also like to thank Freiheit technologies, a software company based in Hamburg, Germany for continuing to support us. Full details of our sponsors are available at this page.

Back to SFD registration we have an exhaustive StartGuide here for newcomers and for the others who need help, and the SFD-Discuss mailing list is probably the best place to get prompt support.

So get ready to celebrate and happy preparations to all!

Celebrate SFD with us on September 17, 2016!

Happy Software Freedom Day!

Posted on by Pockey Lam

Celebrate SFD with us on September 17, 2016!And today is the 13th edition of Software Freedom Day! We wish you all a great day talking to people and discovering (or making them discovery) the benefits and joys of running Free Software. As usual we have a map where you can find all the events in your area. Should you just discover about SFD today and want to organize an event it is never too late. While the date is global, each team has the freedom to run the event at a date that is convenient in their area. We (in Cambodia) are running our event on November 26 due to university schedule, other conferences and religious holidays conflicting.

So hopefully you’ll get hooked just like us and start a new journey into the world of learning, sharing and contributing to your needs!

Happy Software Freedom Day to all of us!

September is here!

Posted on by Pockey Lam

September is the Software Freedom Day month (among other things) since 2005 (SFD 2004 was in August) and this year is no exception! As of last night we have a total of 58 events in 34 countries, with only 42 fully registered (you can see the location on our famous SFD map). There is always a delay between wiki page creation (which includes the plan, speakers, date and location) and the registration which ask organizers to specify where the event will happen.

What to expect from most events? Well Software Freedom Day is really an event to introduce Free and Open Source Software to newcomers and show them all the cool things which can be done using FOSS. While we have a resource page on our wiki to discuss about the various topics which can be presented we let each team decide how to organize their events. Usually events go through FOSS migration or how to gradually switch from proprietary software to FOSS ones starting by switching common applications such as email clients, office applications or other daily used tools. Once all this is working fine an Operating System migration is thinkable. Of course you will always have that application that has no GNU/Linux/BSD equivalent and it is always a pain. Among the various solutions you can either use a virtual machine inside your Free Operating System (but it will usually require extra RAM), dual boot or try Wine/Crossover. There is always the possibility to keep an extra machine just for that too.

Then you have all the more exciting topics about specific tasks or applications which are fully FOSS compliants. Among many Blender and its various projects are probably the more eye catching ones. You also have Inkscape and GIMP for the digital graphists. Then you have projects such as Open Street Map which everyone can make use of and contribute to, or web oriented application such as web servers, web analytics, content management software, configuration application for server such as Vagrant or Ansible, programming language and fun stuff like PyWeek or also educational applications and distributions to get your kids started.

And the list goes on… and then there are the social parts of the events where you meet people and do things together. We’ve had many variations of that over the years and we believe the 2016 edition will be no exception. What can you expect? Best is to attend and see for yourself.

And for the one still wondering if they have time to prepare for September 17, the simple answer is SURE!. You can start reading our StartGuide to get familiar with what to do, and then talk to other FOSS members of your community.

So don’t forget to put our countdown on your sites or blogs and see you all on September 17!

Celebrate SFD with us on September 17, 2016!

Celebrate Software Freedom Day today!

Posted on by Pockey Lam

Free and Open Source Software has come a long way since its inception and while we’re celebrating SFD for the twelfth time, the FSF is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Every software company now tends to use Free and Open Source Software but unfortunately that has just set the Software more as a commodity with very little benefit for advocacy, education or awareness. And so, in a world with Free Software used almost everywhere very few people notice or even care.

Software Freedom Day is here to tell people why we need to remind ourselves of the importance of Software Freedom and to get all the communities together to celebrate and introduce their philosophy to newcomers. Probably more than ever we need to go out and demonstrate the great many things that Free Software has done and enables everyone to do.

As usual events are listed on the SFD Map and should there be no event in your area you can always get together and run one in the upcoming few weeks. On top of all the good things Free Software brings we would also like to remind people that a good way to get started can be through Outreachy, a remote internships in Free and Open Source Software open to everyone regardless of their origins or differences. The next round of internships is from December 7 to March 7 with applications deadline on November 2. This is of course ideal for students in the south hemisphere as the program requires you to be available 40 hours a week but also for anyone either looking for a career change or applies what he/she has learned in a real software environment.

With all these years of experience we are sure your events will shine. And if you’re a little short of ideas you can always refer to our resources. One of note could be the latest Blender movie released end of August maybe followed by a discussion of how the Blender Foundation has been so successful over the years.

Finally we would like to thank all the people making SFD possible and that is our sponsors like the Google Open Source Programs Office, Linode, the Free Software Foundation and our various supporters in the media and community arena. But of course more importantly all the various Free Software communities from Google Developer Groups to Free Software Groups, GNU/Linux User Groups and the various universities interested in Free Software among them.

So, Happy Software Freedom Day to all of you!

Celebrate SFD with us on 19 September 2015!