Final report for 2006

From my point of view, the event was a fantastic success, with everyone who came along or stumbling into one of the rooms from the local library, discovering something new and exciting.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the people who helped make the day the success that it was...

• Annie Payne - Who, as the person responsible for community development at the Mawson Centre, made the venue available for free. We would never been able to have the event without you.

also

• Bettong.Org - Janet and her fellow Bettongs; Kim, Tom, and Bruce
  
• Air-Stream - Robert, Chris, Chris, Kat, Kim, Paul, Ryan, Shawn and Simon

Both of these groups have produced reports of the days activities, which are available
on the Software Freedom Showcase website.

Thanks also to the following people

• Michael - working through a Ubuntu installation
• Kieran - gaming with Linux
  
• Kevin - showing us the electronic music software available for Linux; and
  
• Andrew - for explaining how to install Linux on an iPod
• Sue - from the Mawson Lakes Library, who out together the Free and Open Source book display.
• Ubuntu - for providing the CD's and stickers to give away

In addition, there was also entertainment provided by

• Swing Dancers SA - providing music and movement
  
• Chicago Show Bands - providing music and the BBQ

Photos!

Pictures from the event have now been posted! (Thanks to Janet and Kim for these.)

There is also a great report on the days events, posted by Air-Stream.

More SFD images from around the world.

A couple of other sets of images have been posted from the day..

• Christchurch, New Zealand are running a 2 day event, extending Saturday through to Sunday.
• Des Moines, IA USA - An event by CIALUG - with a good collection of Linux merchandise
• Team Scotland had a table at the Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre

Software Freedom Showcase over for 2006

Well it's over! and everything went really, really well. I didn't have time to grab any photos, but lots of people were making good use of their camera's , so the images should be arriving shortly (hear that everyone!).

It is still 'Software Freedom Day' though, and events are just starting in some places of the world. Pictures are arriving on the the official website gallery, and it looks like a lot of people had a lot of fun... and it's still going.

• In Hamilton, New Zealand, a friendly penguin staked out a shopping mall. Excellent display! Look out for those orange t-shirts, there everywhere.
• The LCUzb (Uzbekistan Linux User Group) had a Party
• The southern group in Adelaide, (Software Freedom Day Expo) has a good setup. There are those orange t-shirts again!
• In Canberra, Australia, a stall was manned at the Kingston Computer Market. Even more orange t-shirts.
• Sydney, Australia has some photos on their information page.. lots of balloons at their event, and a well organised program.
  

Well done everyone.

Only one sleep to go...

Tomorrow is Software Freedom Day.. lets all celebrate this magnificent day, and I might see you there. I'll be the one jumping up and down with excitement.

Less than a week to go..

and this time next week Software Freedom Day will be all over.

It's just about to turn 11pm here on Sunday, September 10th. Adelaide is at +930 hours, which means that everyone has ticked over.

Hopefully we will have internet access on the day during our event (still working on that), but afterwards I will be watching closely to see what happens at the other Software Freedom Day events. If there is an IRC channel, I'll be there...

Cheers, everyone..

Snookered..

This week we had some disappointing news about some of the resources at our venue.

The Mawson Centre, in Mawson Lakes, is a joint project between the University of South Australia, The South Australian Education Department (Department of Education and Childrens Services) and the City of Salisbury. This is generally excellent. The Univerisity gets another building to use during the day, the local school get some much needed office space, and the Council has a readly made location for the public library.

The building is managed by the University, and it allows people from these three community serving areas to interact in ways that they normally wouldn't.

So what's the problem? In a couple of words, University beauocracy and proprietory software.

Part of the resources provided by the University are the buildings computers and network and we were hoping to make use of these during the event. Unfortunately, these systems have been setup with propietory software and locked down.

The systems themselves allow for the three types of users, Univerisity, School and Library to have separate sets of software programs available (selected when you log in) but the actual process for how this software is selected has been hidden. A system does exist for makingn changes, which involves signoffs, testing and evaluation, but the impression that has been given (and I have no facts about it) is that it is highly beaurocratic and will take a long time.

Community use of the Mawson Centre is not going to go away, and neither is Software Freedom Day. There are some very simple things that can be done here which could make the situation better for everyone.

I'm already looking forward to Software Freedom Day 2007!

8 days to go..

Over the last couple of days, I have been mailing out brochures to people who may be interested in attending the event, or who might be able to further promote the Software Freedom Showcase.

• City of Salisbury and City of Playford Libraries
• City of Salisbury Community development and PR people
• South Australian ABC Television - State Line
• South Australian Parliament Representative - Mr Kevin Foley, MP
• The Advertiser - Local Newspaper
• The News Review - Local Salisbury, Playford, Gawler Newspaper
• The Independent Weekly - Local independent newspaper
• PBA FM - Local, Saliabury based, Radio Station
• South Australian computer associations and branches
• Some appropriate State government organisations
  

Progress report...

There is now less than 2 weeks to go before Software Freedom Day and the Software Freedom Showcase in Mawson Lakes. The following are just some of the things that are happening this week..

• Promotion to UniSA, Mawson Lakes Campus- T-shirts, CD's, Stickers and Balloons should arrive
• Confirm that Sausage Sizzle is going ahead
• Network connectivity with Air-Stream
• Contact the Library and confirm book display for next week
  

Other things which are happening:

• Look out for TripleJ's interview on Hack (5.30pm weekdays) with Pia Waugh
• Finishing off the banner
  

I will have more details about the program next week, but at the
moment, things are very much on track for a great day on the 16th!

So why are we doing this?

Open Source is more than open source. The following is from Pia Waugh (see her blog, specifically here) which she describes elsewhere as the "Four Pillars of Free and Open Source Software". It's a list of what we are trying to communicate on Software Freedom Day.

So what is Free and Open Source Software all about?

Open Standards

Software that adheres to internationally recognised and open data formats and protocols.

Open Licences

The software must be released under an official Open Source licence, according to the Open Source Initiative (OSI).

Open Knowledge and Open Source

The software and source must be available and freely distributed, ensuring equal access to the technology. The development tools and documentation must be freely available to everyone.

Open Community

Contributing to and using the software must be completely open to anyone, anywhere, and with no restrictions.

Registering for Ubuntu CD's

I have added an announcement and an email address (sfs@mawsonlakes.org) where people can register, and reserve a copy of the Ubuntu CD's that we have available to give away.

The reason for this is that, at this stage with less than 2 weeks to go, we really have no idea how many people are going to show up on the day.

In the last couple of days, I have actually been surprised by the response I have received from people who I have spoken to, or who have seen the poster or read the brochure. This is both exciting and scary! It seem like everyone likes free stuff.. well no surprise there.

Anyway, I still have no idea how many people will turn up, but I'm feeling like there is lots of interest in the event and that the stash of CD's will quickly disappear early in the day, leaving nothing for those who come along latter. This email address should solve that problem.

There is also the opportunity for people to pick up a copy prior to the event by visiting the local computer shop.. details are on the Software Freedom Showcase website.

sfd06

Pia Waugh to be interviewed on TripleJ

Sometime this week, TripleJ will be interviewing Pia Waugh, on their Hack program, on Software Freedom Day.

Pia is the new President of Software Freedom International, Vice-President of Linux Australia, and a core organiser of the Linux Australia Conferense (linux.conf.au) to be held in Sydney next year.

She has been involved in Free and Open Source software for quite some time now.. and also won the 'Rusty Wrench' award last year for her efforts.

The 'Rusty Wrench' award is an annual award presented at the Linux Conference dinner to someone who has done significant work in the Linux community in Australia. It is named after Paul 'Rusty' Russell, who organised the first Linux Australia conference (Conference of Australian Linux Users, or CALU) in 1999.

Two weeks to go..

It's Friday evening, and now there is only 2 weeks to go to Software Freedom Day.

After a short break, spent on beautiful Kangaroo Island (just south of Adelaide), it is time to get back into the preparations for the Software Freedom Showcase.

Almost all of the material for the day has arrived. We now have 170 Ubuntu CDRom's to give away, even a couple of Mac (PowerPC) and 64bit (AMD64) versions. Organiser t-shirts have arrived. The only thing yet to come are the balloons.

Special thanks to the Software Freedom Day organisation for organising and providing these, and Ubunt ShipIt for sending out the Ubuntu CDROM's. A bit thank you to Pia Waugh and helpers for packaging up the loot.

Tag: sfd2006

Three weeks to go.

Tomorrow (Saturday) it will be three weeks to go Software Freedom Day.

I am taking the next 5 days off, to take a well earned break take a trip to Kangaroo Island with my wife (Beck). It's her birthday tomorrow, and our wedding anniversary on Tuesday.

I'll be back one board Thursday next week... already for the final push for Software Freedom Day.

Spelling mistake in brochure..

Rats. I though I'd proof read it completely. I printed some and passed the out, and a mate spotted as error straight away.

It's fixed now.. my fault for not applying the Open Source mantra "Release early, release often" to my promotional material :-)

Software Freedom Showcase makes The Rubernerd Show

The Rubenerd Show is a daily 10 minute podcast produced by Ruben Schade, who among other things is a student at the University of Adelaide.

He has kindly promoted the event on his latest podcast, which can be found here at the shows
website: The Rubenerd Show.

I have invited him to do a broadcast from the event on the 16th September... lets see if he can make it.

New Brochure and Stuff

With almost only 3 weeks to go I finally got myself organised and finished off the brochure for the event.

Pages 1 and 2 - can be downloaded here: http://sfs.mawsonlakes.org/promotion.php

Have dropped 15 copies off at the Mawson Lakes library. Go and get a copy :-)

So.. where are you from?

Today I added a web counter to the Software Freedom Showcase webpage. The web counter from ClustrMaps will also show where visitors have come from.. so lets see where everyone is coming from.

Announcemnt made on LocalFOSS

Last week I was interviewed by the lovely Keren (aka MotherLUG) for the LocalFOSS 'LUG in Focus' broadcast, on the events planned for the Software Freedom Showcase.

It wasn't anywhere near as painful as I expected :-)

The interview is located here: www.localfoss.org/node/214

Four weeks to go!

We have crossed the 'Four Weeks to Go' line for Software Freedom Day!

In less than a month, the world will witness Software Freedom Day 2006.

Everything at the Mawson Centre's Software Freedom is going well. There are still opportunities for individuals or groups to participate in the official program, but time is fast running out.

The day is going to be packed with activities, and we guarentee that everyone will learn something new..

The Picture Wall is Up!

In order to create another interesting display for the day, I have created a 'picure-wall'.

The aim was to create a collage of images which would be displayed on a projector or monitor, showing the activities around the world on Software Freedom Day 2006.

The dispay can be seen at sfs.mawsonlakes.org/picture-wall.

Some details:

• Currently assumes a display that's 1024 x 768
• Various layout examples available.
• Source available, GPL (using git, see below)
• Suggestions / Improvements welcome.
  

To obtain a complete copy of the source, using 'git'

> git clone http://sfs.mawsonlakes.org/picture-wall/.git

To install 'git' under Ubuntu (Dapper)

> apt-get install git-core
> apt-get install curl

South Africa's Go-Open Source Campaign

It campaign has finished, but the Shuttleworth Foundation with other sponsors, put together a 13 part television series about Open Source Software, what it does and how to use it. It ran during the 2005-2006 Christmas and NewYear Season and the video's are available from their webside:
www.go-opensource.org.
There is a nice blurb at the begining of each program which describes what we are all on about..

Open source exists as a result
of the combined efforts of millions of
computer programmers, users
and software vendors
from around the world.

They share their intellectual property freely.
And they believe that software
should cost nothing and should
enrich the lives of users.

Open source software is the alternative
and biggest challenger to closed
source or proprietary software.

It generally costs the user nothing.
It can be distributed freely to anyone.

Download it.
Use it.
Modify it.
And give it away.

It's a whole new world.
Open Source is the future of computing.

--- Go-Open Campaign, South Africa, Nov 2005 - February 2006 - www.go-opensource.org

The Future of Software

Saturday September 16 is Software Freedom Day, an international annual event where people from all around the globe celebrate something that many of us take for granted.

Every time you visit the internet, an incredible number of diverse programs have to work together to bring you the information that you asked for. The very existence of our information age relies on software that has been written and made available for use by anyone who wants it, free of charge, for whatever purpose they choose, together with the guarantee that they will always have access to the latest version and be able to share this information with whomever else they choose.

There are quite a few very big examples. The Internet's Domain Name Service(DNS) is the system that maps names like www.google.org to computer addresses, the email delivery program that started the whole email explosion is called Sendmail, and over 70% of all websites (including Google) use a program called Apache. All of these and more than 10,000 more pieces come bundled on CD's with the GNU/Linux operating system which will run on a wide variety of hardware, including most home personal computers and Macs. There are even versions that will run on the Apple iPod and Microsoft XBox.

Anyone, including budding software engineers and scientists, can download the code to these programs, investigate how they work, make changes and give the changes to anyone they choose without restriction.

So what does this mean to you?

If you think that you not using Open Source software, then, as mentioned above, I'm afraid you're a little mistaken. It's already all around you and it's influence will continue to grow.

The developing world is making huge use of this resource, China has already developed it's own version called 'Red Flag Linux', and Spain is using it to educate its children.

Open Source software is not dependent on the fortunes of a single company, or the economy that it operates in. It welcomes improvements and contributions from wherever they come. Business leaders can contribute by funding bounties or directly employing programmers to add the features that they need. Community organisations can get better value from their limited resources, and Governments can use and promote a more open and equitable infrastructure, benefiting the entire society.

For more information on the plans for Software Freedom Day, of if you would like organise your own event, see softwarefreedomday.org.

Helpers needed.

If are interested in coming to the Software Freedom Showcase, and would like to help out, please let me know.

I am looking for help running the information desk and to direct people around the place.

There is already alot of activities planned, but there are still opportunities for demonstrations, displays and presentations. If you're doing amazing things with Free and Open Source software, please let me know.

Paul Schulz - paul@mawsonlakes.org

Tagging the blog for Software Freedom Day 2006.

A request has gone out for blogs relating to activities planned for Software Freedom Day 2006 be tagged with sfd06, so that they can be searched and aggregated.

I'm not exactly sure what this means I have to do, but if your searching for Software Freedom Day activities, in the northern part of Adelaide, you've come to the right spot.

Only 6 weeks to go...

It feels like just yesterday when I though I would help organise an event for Software Freedom Day in Mawson Lakes, Adelaide. It was 6 weeks ago, and not there are only 6 weeks until the event itself.
This is the first blog entry of hopefully more than 6, giving you some insite into what progress is being made with the Software Freedom Showcase
The event is being held at the Mawson Lakes, who are kindly sponsoring this community event.
Promotional material has gone out, and the organisation of presentations, activities and demonstations are well underway. At this stage the following groups have committed to putting on activities:

• Betting.Org - Software demonstrations and activities
• Air-Stream - Wireless networking

Resourses have also been provided by

• SoftwareFreedomDay - Promotion and Publicity material
• Lnux Australia - Promotional material, Public Liability Insurance
  
• Ubuntu - CD's to give away

If you are doing interesting things with Free and Open Source Software, then I would love to hear from you. If you are part of a group developing, using or playing with Free and Open Source Software then you are more than welcome, and it's not too late to organise a group meeting, or demonstation for the day.

Please contact me: Paul Schulz (paul@mawsonlakes.org)