Rik: Need contact details, and I can change this if you want to be
quoted. You've worked on 9, I've helped on a couple.
Everyone: Comments?
I've emailed a couple of people to let them know to expect this. Canta
is published on Wednesday, The Star has a Friday edition, and the Mail
is on Thursday. If anyone has good coontacts, photos from previous years
etc let me know.
Also looking for good videos - something on the Patent issue would be
good.
Got to go start cooking dinner now :-(
MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Software Freedom Day celebrates 10th year in Christchurch
Ever wanted to set up your own Facebook, build a personal digital video
recorder or make a video DVD? These are a few of the topics to be
covered at the 10th annual Software Freedom Day on the 21st of
September.
Software Freedom Days have traditionally been about giving away CDs and
installing and fixing software. "We'll still be doing that, but we will
also be giving demonstrations of free software for business, education
and community organisations" one of the organisers, Don Robertson, said.
"Over the last ten years, free software - all software - has become much
more stable and easier to use. Well, less hard, but even my mother was
able to go from OS X to Linux without any problems. So we want to focus
on showing how much high quality free software is available, and on some
wider issues - getting technology to poorer communities, privacy and
data security, patents and creative freedom, open formats ... and to
dispell some myths. Free software is not copy-right violation or
stealing, you don't need to join the communist party to use it. The
Greens, Labour and Act's web sites all run on Free Software. National
also uses Free Software components. Things like that."
While much of the software can be installed and distributed at no cost,
that's not the most important meaning of the word 'free'. "Free means
you are able to use the software any way you want, to change it if you
want, and to share it with anyone. It means you can use it to build
other software. It means free as in Liberty".
Modern software is often built up with parts - like putting Lego blocks
together. "If you have to make licensing deals for every block ... that
stifles innovation, it stops people putting things together in new
ways".
Free Open Source Software (FOSS) is often called Free Libre Open Source
Software, or FLOSS, to emphasise this distinction. "I tried to use Libre
Open Source Software, but it didn't really work" says Robertson.
The Free Software movement is bound up with the Open Standards, Open
Data and Open content movements. "We're seeing a growth in all these
areas", says Robertson. "Some companies are notorious for using formats
no one else can use. Once you use their software, you can't switch to
anything else". Some companies even make new versions of their software
incompatible with old versions, forcing upgrades.
Academic publishing has also come under pressure to be more open. "The
public fund a lot of research, but often cannot afford to read the
results. The academic journals hold the copy-right". The UK and USA are
legislating to require that government funded research is published with
Open Access. "Open Source Software - such as the Public Knowledge
Project's software - makes this easy to do".
Largely due to the diligence and hard work of Rik Tindall, the events
co-ordinator, this is Christchurch's tenth Software Freedom Day. "We
will be the first of over Free Software Day 270 events around the world"
says Don Robertson, "and Christchurch will be the only centre in New
Zealand that has celebrated all Software Freedom Days"
--- ENDS
ABOUT
Software Freedom Day (SFD) is an annual worldwide celebration of Free
Software. SFD is a public education effort with the aim of increasing
awareness of Free Software and its virtues, and encouraging its use.
Software Freedom Day was established in 2004 and was first observed on
28 August of that year. About 12 teams participated in the first
Software Freedom Day. Since that time it has grown in popularity and
while organisers anticipated more than 1,000 teams in 2010[1] the event
has stalled at around 400+ locations over the past two years,
representing a 30% decrease over 2009.
Since 2006 Software Freedom Day has been held on the third Saturday of
September, it has occasionally coincided with International Talk Like a
Pirate Day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Freedom_Day
softwarefreedomday.org/
www.robertson.net.nz/sfd
CONTACT
Rik Tindall
Don Robertson
[email protected]
www.robertson.net.nz
021 294 1452
--
Don Robertson
64 21 294 1452
[email protected]
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