Software Freedom Day
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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. Over 70 teams participated in the first Software Freedom Day. Since that time it has grown in popularity and organisers anticipated more than 1,000 teams in 2010[1] (though only half of this number was actually achieved, 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.
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[edit] Software Freedom International
"Software Freedom International" (SFI) is a non-profit organisation that acts as the official organiser of Software Freedom Day, and is the legal body that handles donations, sponsorship contracts, and accounting. SFI has successfully obtain a tax-exempt status in the USA where it is registered, in order to make donations tax-deductible. The name Software Freedom International was chosen to distinguish the organisational body from the event of Software Freedom Day itself.
[edit] The day itself
Each event is left to local teams around the world to organise. Pre-registered teams (2 months before the date or earlier) receive free schwag sent by SFI to help with the events themselves. The SFD wiki contains individual team pages describing their plans as well as helpful information to get them up to speed. Events themselves varies between conferences explaining the virtues of Free and Open Source Software, to workshops, demonstrations, games, planting tree ceremonies, discussions and InstallFests.[2]
[edit] Events
SFD 2004 was held on 28 August with more than 70 teams.
SFD 2005 was held on 10 September with more than 120 teams from over 60 countries.
SFD 2006 was held on 16 September with more than 200 teams from over 70 countries.
SFD 2007 was held on 15 September with more than 350 teams from over 80 countries.
SFD 2008 was held on 20 September with more than 500 teams in over 90 countries.
SFD 2009 was held on 19 September with more than 700 teams in over 90 countries.
SFD 2010 was held on 18 September with about 500 teams in over 100 countries.
SFD 2011 was held on 17 September.
[edit] Sponsors
The primary sponsor from the start was Canonical Ltd., the company behind Ubuntu, a Linux distribution. Then IBM, Sun Microsystems, DKUUG, Google, Red Hat, Linode, Nokia and now MakerBot Industries have joined the supporting organisations as well as the FSF and the FSFE. IBM and Sun Microsystems are currently not sponsoring the event. In terms of media coverage SFI is partnering with Linux Magazine and Ubuntu User. Each local team can seek sponsors independently, especially local FOSS supporting organisations and often appears in local medias such as newspapers and TV.[3]
[edit] SFI Board Members
- Frederic Muller (President), founding member and former President of the Beijing LUG, co-organizer of many international FOSS events in China and Asia such as the Linux Developer Symposium (2008), Gnome.Asia Summits, OOoCon 2008, and of course local SFD events. Fred is as well as co-maintainer of RUR-PLE (a python learning environment for children) and a GNOME Foundation member.
- Matt Oquist (VP, Treasurer and co-founder), a Tufts University graduate student and employee of the Virtual Learning Academy Charter School
- Pockey Lam (Secretary), Former president of Beijing Linux User Group, founding member of SFDChina.org, GNOME.Asia Summit, College OSS Society and Beijing GNOME User Group.
- JM C. Bitanga
- Jan Husar
[edit] Past SFI Board Members
- Quiliro Ordóñez
- Silvia Aimasso
- Alexjan Carraturo
- Pia Waugh (President), of Linux Australia
- Henrik Nilsen Omma of TheOpenCD project
- Phil Harper, of TheOpenCD project
- Benjamin Mako Hill, of the Free Software Foundation
- Sidsel Jensen, DKUUG
- Frederick Noronha, Goa SFD Team
- Joe Olutuase, of Knowledge House Africa
- Robert Schumann, of TheOpenCD project
Volunteer efforts are sought in many other sectors too, including local (national or regional) coordinators, sponsorship coordinator, wiki/website maintainers, media campaign people, etc.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Fred Muller's blog (President of Software Freedom International)
- ^ SFD Startup Guide (What should we do)
- ^ Press coverage
