September is the Software Freedom Day(1) 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(2) in 34 countries(3), with only
42 fully registered(4) (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(5) 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(6). 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(7) and
its various projects(8) are probably the more eye catching ones. You
also have Inkscape(9) and GIMP(10) for the digital graphists. Then you
have projects such as Open Street Map(11) 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(12) or Ansible(13), programming language and fun
stuff like PyWeek(14) 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(15) 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(16) on your sites or blogs and see
you all on September 17!
Fred
on behalf of Digital Freedom Foundation
1. http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/
2. http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/CategoryTeam2016
3. http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2016
4. http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/map/index.php?year=2016
5. http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/Resources
6. https://www.codeweavers.com/about/support-wine
7. https://www.blender.org/
8. https://www.blender.org/features/projects/
9. https://inkscape.org/
10. http://www.gimp.org/
11. http://www.openstreetmap.org/
12. https://www.vagrantup.com/
13. https://github.com/ansible
14. https://pyweek.org/
15. http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/StartGuide
16. http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/index.php/promote/countdown
