- SFD-announce - lists.mailman3.com

CDs to be dispatched to SFD teams

by Robert Schumann

The organisers of Software Freedom Day have been discussing making some changes to the supplies we will be making available to SFD teams this year. Last year we helped Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, send shipments of Ubuntu CDs to teams, and teams once again have the opportunity to request Ubuntu CDs when they register this year. We have also been intending this year to ship copies of The Open CD ( http://theopencd.org/) which was supplied to teams in 2005 - and when teams register this year, they are offered the opportunity to specify how many of The Open CD they would like to receive. However, for various reasons we would like to avoid shipping The Open CD this year. The major reason is cost: although the cost per team might only be US$10 or US$15, when you have hundreds of teams registered that becomes a lot of money. Software Freedom International (the organisation behind SFD) has very limited funds and we believe this is not an effective use of those funds. What we are proposing instead is to send teams 1. One CD or DVD containing open source documentaries, interviews, music and any other open resources we can get hold of 2. A single copy of The Open CD, which can be replicated by teams if they wish to distribute this software 3. ...as well as the usual T-shirts and a few other little items! Another part of the reason for this proposed change is to make available to teams (including teams in parts of the world where internet connectivity is not great) a set of resources that can be used to convey the message of software freedom (for example, interviews with some leaders in the FLOSS world). These resources could then also be used to put together your own documentary or shown at other software freedom events you may plan ( e.g. for a campus fair at your college, or an IT exhibition). Before making this change, we wanted to hear feedback from you, the team leaders and FLOSS enthusiasts from around the world. So please do get in touch with us to let us know what you think (about this change, and about our proposed team supplies) and ask any questions you may have. You can either chat with other SFD participants on the SFD-discuss mailing list (you need to be a member: join at http://mail.sf-day.org/lists/listinfo/sfd-discuss) or you can send your comments/questions direct to the SFI board at info(a)sf-day.org. We are specifically interested in 1. suggestions for resources to be put on the CD/DVD (which must be under an open license). 2. whether your team would have a problem using a DVD and you'd prefer a CD. Looking forward to hearing from you, Robert. PS - Three months left to go before SFD! How are your preparations going?

June 11, 2007

Registrations are open for SFD 2007!

by Pia Waugh

Hi all! Registrations are open for Software Freedom Day 2007! Welcome to the planning and preparation for Software Freedom Day 2007. We have more resources, documentation and goodies for you, and we look forward to sharing the biggest and best SFD ever with you all! == Registration == The SFD2007 team registration is now open! You'll need to register before the schwag deadline (31 July) to receive shirts, balloons and stickers to help your event look spectacular. Teams that register after the schwag deadline will still be included as official events, but will not receive any goodies. Each team (registered before the schwag deadline) will receive two SFD2007 shirts for free. We will have extra shirts for sale soon, however if your team has special needs or is in a developing nation, please send us a special extra tshirts request to info [at] sf-day.org and we will consider more shirts for your team on a case by case basis. There are limited numbers of shirts, balloons and stickers, and we will try to make sure teams are as well equipped as possible. Teams can find information from the Start Guide including artwork, marketing information, generic press releases, tips and tricks for running an event and much more - http://softwarefreedomday.org/StartGuide Many thanks to Robert Schumann who tirelessy worked on the registration page! == Website == Firstly, please note that in order to keep the website sane, we have migrated all 2006 team pages to an archive page. You are completely welcome to copy and paste from your archived pages to a new page, but you'll need to create a new team page prior to your team registration. We've got a new look and feel. Many thanks to Phil Harper who created the look and feel and Judy Wilson who updated loads of information. == Team Communications == We are currently not running a forum, and encourage you all to post to the sfd-discuss mailing list for questions, ideas, team announcements and more. Join the sfd-discuss mailing list at http://mail.sf-day.org/lists/listinfo/sfd-discuss. All team leaders that register will be automatically added to the sfd-announce mailing list if they are not already on it. If enough people request the forum functionality back again we may enable it. Ensure your SFD team page is up to date so that people can find and attend your event. If you choose to have a SFD team page separate from the SFD website, please ensure you link to it so everyone can find events through the SFD website. Make sure you link any press coverage of your event and press releases to http://softwarefreedomday.org/press. == Competition == We will certainly be running a competition again this year, however will be announcing the competition within the month. Please check out last years competition for some ideas as this years competition will be very similar. http://softwarefreedomday.org/competition. == Questions? == Please post questions to the sfd-discuss mailing list so all teams can learn from and support each other. For specific or private enquiries, please email info [at] sf-day [dot] org. Cheers, Pia Waugh President Software Freedom International -- Software Freedom Day 2007 http://softwarefreedomday.org/ "There is no darkness but ignorance." - William Shakespeare

May 6, 2007

Hello Everyone

by Russell John

I just wanted to say hello to all of you... only four and a half months left to the next SFD. - Russell

April 29, 2007

Software Freedom... in Oxford, and next week

by Robert Schumann

The coordinators of Software Freedom Day are meeting in Oxford on 3 March this year - and supporters of FOSS are invited to come chat with us about software freedom in general and SFD in particular. * DATE: Saturday 3 March 2007 * TIME: 1330 UTC onwards (till late afternoon) * VENUE: Freud's Bar, Walton Street, Oxford (walking distance from bus and train stations) * Maps and information about venue at the end of this email.[1], [2] Please drop an email to info(a)sf-day.org if you're planning to come - so that we can work out (approximate) numbers. == Background == Software Freedom Day is getting a professional makeover this year as Software Freedom International (SFI), the organisation behind this annual event, holds their first ever face-to-face board meeting. The coordination of SFD in previous years has been undertaken by the board [3], consisting of members in Australia, Pakistan, Nigeria, UK, Denmark and USA, using IRC and email as their primary means of communication. Their coordination has supported teams all over the world in staging their own local events, which vary from giving away FOSS CDs to staging seminars to demonstrating FOSS to their communities. After the overwhelming positive response for SFD 2006 (with close to 200 teams from all over the world registered) and the late delivery of support to some teams, the board has decided to shake things up and sharpen their strategy for bringing software freedom to the streets. Part of this has involved restructuring the board to enhance contact with teams, but we've also decided to sit down together and make some serious plans to grow SFD and further promote the spread of free software. The SFI board will be meeting in Oxford from 1 to 3 March, and on our last day of meetings we wanted to invite members of the local FOSS communities - or even those just curious about SFD - to come for a few drinks, some food, and to share your thoughts with us. Please do come along if you're anywhere near Oxford, and find out about our new ideas for Software Freedom Day! Our face-to-face meeting could not take place without the assistance of OSS Watch [5], the open source advisory service based at the University of Oxford. Many thanks to them, to our other sponsors, and to the teams that make SFD worthwhile. Make sure you have Saturday 15 September in your diaries for Software Freedom Day 2007, and we hope to see you in person, in Oxford! Robert. [1] Freud's website: http://www.freudliving.co.uk/cgi-bin/shop/page.cgi?user_id=526&file=bars.ht… [2] Google map to Freud's: http://tinyurl.com/2cenps [3] SFI board: http://softwarefreedomday.org/sfi [4] IBM: http://www.ibm.com/ [5] OSS Watch: http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/

Feb. 20, 2007

[SFD-TC] Contest update - deadline extension for documentaries!

by Matt Oquist

Contest Results We and the stupendous folks from lugradio.org will be juding your contest entries in the coming days, and the results will be collected on Wednesday and tabulated ASAP and announced! Documentary Deadline -- Extended! Several hard-working folks have contacted us to say they're working on documentaries, but they needed the deadline extended. In retrospect, we realize that of course that particular contest needs to have a much later deadline than the others. You can't get footage until your SFD event, and editing takes a while! So, we've decided that: * The "Best Documentary" contest deadline is extended to NOVEMBER 30th! That should give folks *lots* more time to work on their entries, and we're looking forward to seeing them! Documentary Entries - New entries accepted It wouldn't be fair for us to extend this deadline without offering to accept additional entries from other teams, so everyone should feel free to polish off their copies of Cinelerra (or Kino?) and do what they can to produce a SFD documentary worth the prize of an IBM Power5 series server...a nice addition to any server closet anywhere! As always, feel free to contact info(a)softwarefreedomday.org with your questions and comments. Regards, Matt Oquist -- --------------------------------------------------------- SoftwareFreedomDay.org : Celebrating Free and Open Source Software in Your Community info AT softwarefreedomday.org http://softwarefreedomday.org/ SFD Sponsors: http://canonical.com http://www.dkuug.dk http://ibm.com

Oct. 16, 2006

[SFD-TC] Re: [Planning-en] Report from Dubbo

by Matt Oquist

Great to hear, Andrew! Are you planning to submit any feedback through the feedback form? :) http://softwarefreedomday.org/feedback The feedback we receive from you all helps us to (among other things) seek future sponsorship, because we can quote your actual reported numbers regarding team participation, number of CDs distributed, number of people you talk to, etc. Keep sending these emails! We love to read them and see your pictures in the gallery ( http://softwarefreedomday.org/gallery/2006 ), but please take the time to drop by http://softwarefreedomday.org/feedback as well. And again, nice work, Andrew. It's great to see you all having such positive influences within your communities, and as I just told some friends today after seeing some of the African SFD photos, I can't even imagine how so many people think proprietary software is even remotely as valuable as FOSS. The sort of local empowerment that we all celebrate through our SFD events has no parallel in the propietary software world. --matt Andrew Swinn wrote: [Sat Sep 16 2006, 05:56:58PM EDT] > Howdy all, > > Well I must say we had an excellent Software Freedom Day. > > Our day was spent at one of our local shoppings malls with a display > that I had been organising during the week. It basically consisted of 4 > computers setup with Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Xubuntu and Damn Small Linux, a > projector hooked up to the Ubuntu machine running the Blender Siggraph > Demoreels and the occasional other video we had. There was also a > noticeboard that had various information leaflets for people to read. > > We had a little bit of press help promoting the event earlier in the > week. One of our local free newspapers, the Dubbo Photo News, published > a small article on Thursday. Our local prominent AM radio station, 2DU, > did and interview with myself earlier in the week which had some good > results as a number of people mentioned hearing it. The Dubbo Photo News > photographer visited us on Saturday to take a heap of photos and get > some information and they will be running it as a major article in next > weeks paper. > > The day started with about 200 Ubuntu CDs, and I also had a heap of > blank CDs which I was using to burn copies of the Open Source Free CD > for people. I think we gave away around half the Ubuntu CDs and about 20 > odd OSFCDs. > > There was lots of passing interest in our display and there were a large > number of computer professionals that were very interested, a few system > admins, an IT teacher/admin from a local high school, and others. Over > the entire day there was not one negative comment regarding open source > or Linux, everyone was most positive and there were certainly lots of > average people quite interested as well. > > Our club (Dubbo and District Computer Club) got a good lot of promotion > and we are expecting to get a few new faces at our next meeting which we > have lined up as a workshop to do a bit of a Linux installfest and to > teach the basics of the Linux CLI. > > I shall be putting together a page of photos at some stage tonight. > > I hope everyone else had a day as successful as ours was. > > Cheers, > > Andrew Swinn > Dubbo Team > > > _______________________________________________ > Planning-en mailing list > Planning-en(a)sf-day.org > http://mail.sf-day.org/lists/listinfo/planning-en -- --------------------------------------------------------- SoftwareFreedomDay.org : Celebrating Free and Open Source Software in Your Community info AT softwarefreedomday.org http://softwarefreedomday.org/ SFD Sponsors: http://canonical.com http://www.dkuug.dk http://ibm.com

Sept. 28, 2006

[SFD-TC] Software Freedom Day prizes - two days left to go!

by Robert Schumann

Reports have been coming in to SFD central about the awesome events that teams have been organising in every corner of the globe - thank you all for making this year's event such a success! We'd really like to give away some prizes now! We've got a few seriously powerful computers from IBM to hand out, and some T-shirts signed by a handful of leaders in the open source community. The deadline for entries in the competition is *this weekend*. Individuals can enter by sending us photos or logos they have designed, or telling us about their blog or other pieces they have written about SFD. The categories are: * Best event photo * Best localised version of the official SFD logo * Best global version of the official SFD logo * Best SFD blog coverage * Highest ranking Government official at SFD event (photo required) Your team can enter in the categories * Best SFD event publicity * Best SFD documentary * Best plan for FOSS deployment project on new server for community benefit * Best SFD event Entries should be emailed to comp(a)sf-day.org by 30 September - full competition rules and more information are at http://softwarefreedomday.org/Competition2006 We are looking forward to taking a look at your pics and press coverage! Robert.

Sept. 27, 2006

[SFD-TC] SFD 2006: Feedback please!

by Matt Oquist

(I apologize for the cross-posting, but everyone is welcome to submit feedback, not just team leaders.) The feedback form: http://softwarefreedomday.org/feedback Now that 16 September has passed and we've all had a few days to recover, it's time to start looking forward to SFD 2007, and the best way to start that is by looking back at SFD 2006 and learning from this experience. We want to know what works and what doesn't work, and how we can all improve. There are some obvious things SFI intends to change; we need to smooth out the registrations and supplies shipping process. But we need to hear your great ideas in order to make SFD 2007 the biggest, best SFD ever! Please go to http://softwarefreedomday.org/feedback at your earliest convenience and take a couple minutes to let us know about your SFD 2006 experience. Regards, Matt -- --------------------------------------------------------- SoftwareFreedomDay.org : Celebrating Free and Open Source Software in Your Community info AT softwarefreedomday.org http://softwarefreedomday.org/ SFD Sponsors: http://canonical.com http://www.dkuug.dk http://ibm.com

Sept. 21, 2006

[SFD-TC] Team event reports

by Phil Harper

Hey, Happy Software Freedom Day All! I just wanted to remind you guys that there's a TeamReports page in the wiki * http://softwarefreedomday.org/TeamReports I'd be extremely grateful if you could add a link to your team's report and photos, even if hosted off site, as and when you have one ready, this'll make it much easier to see who's been up to what and gives us a good page to submit to Slashdot (please, feel free to hit /. with SFD stories, http://slashdot.org/submit.pl ;)). Thanks, and have a great day!(if you haven't had it already), Phil.

Sept. 16, 2006

[SFD-TC] SFD is here!

by Matt Oquist

Many of you around the world are already celebrating, and I hear the weather's been great for some of you. I hope the rest of you fare as well. :) We'll be sending out a URL later where you can provide us with some basic statistics about your celebrations - how many people did you talk to, how many CDs did you distribute, did your materials arrive on time, etc. Remember to take lots of pictures, and most of all, HAVE FUN! With warm regards, Matt Oquist -- --------------------------------------------------------- SoftwareFreedomDay.org : Celebrating Free and Open Source Software in Your Community info AT softwarefreedomday.org http://softwarefreedomday.org/ SFD Sponsors: http://canonical.com http://www.dkuug.dk http://ibm.com

Sept. 16, 2006