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)