On August 28, Free Software enthusiasts in South Africa will be celebrating Software Freedom Day. GNU/Linux user groups (LUGs), companies, organisations and individuals from around South Africa will get together to raise a toast for free and open source software. This is scheduled to be an annual event aimed at increasing awareness about free software.
The initial call to declare a software freedom day was started in the US and has since been taken by organisations around the world. Software Freedom Day was also celebrated in India by the Free Software Foundation India. The activities spread over a day included a discussion on copyrights and society, a presentation on the Thunder by Anand Babu, an exhibition of IT related caricatures and posters etc. Some publications and short films were also screened.
In South Africa a local website has been established to publicise the day and events have been planned for shopping centres, universities and schools throughout the country. As the day is designed to promote the use of Free Software, most organisations taking part in the celebrations will be handing out Free Software and giving members of the public a chance to see what it is capable of. Many organisations will be handing out a copy of The OpenCD, a collection of free software that can be used on Microsoft Windows.
For users wanting to try out the GNU/Linux operating system organisations will also be handing out copies of Knoppix as well as other GNU/Linux distributions.
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