Software Freedom Day Melbourne, Australia
Saturday 18 September 2010, 10am–4pm (Add it to your diary with this link! softwarefreedomday-melb.ics)
- State Library of Victoria
- Free of charge
Software Freedom Day is an event held all over the world to celebrate and raise awareness of free software and open source software. Software Freedom Day Melbourne is on Saturday 18 September 2010, 10am–4pm at the State Library of Victoria.
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“Our vision is to empower all people to freely connect, create and share in a digital world that is participatory, transparent, and sustainable.” — Software Freedom Day vision statement
The day will feature a wide selection of inspiring presentations and interactive workshops. We welcome participants of all ages or experience levels. Many software-related community groups will also be exhibiting their projects. This is a great way to meet others and learn a little more about these important issues.
Topics for the day include:
- an introduction to free software
installing GNU/Linux and how to use free software programs
community knowledge and data projects such as Wikipedia and Open Street Map
- social problems such as software patents and digital restrictions management (DRM)
public-standard formats such as Open Document
hardware hacking with Arduino
Creative Commons licensing to promote sharing and reuse
This is a free of charge event. Put the date in your diary now! We're looking forward to seeing you there.
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Who runs Software Freedom Day Melbourne?
This is a community event, run by committee of volunteers interested in free software, open source software and general freedom for computer users. The event is coordinated by members of Linux Users Victoria. We greatly appreciate the generous support of Vicnet and the State Library of Victoria.
What is free software and open source software?
Free software and open source software are two distinct community movements. Both movements agree that we should be able to: use software for any purpose, study how it works, modify it to suit your needs and distribute copies. The open source movement reason that this provides pragmatic benefits, such as more reliable software. The free software movement cites ethical benefits, such as freedom to control your own computing. While these movements differ in philosophy, they are good friends.
Media contact: ben@softwarefreedom.com.au
Photos by Peter Baker and Donna Benjamin.
Get involved
Planning is now underway for the 2010 event in Melbourne. If you have ideas or suggestions for how we can make this event bigger, brighter and better, please get in touch via @sfd_melb on Twitter or #sfdmelb on IRC via freenode, or via Linux Users Victoria.
Thank you to everyone for the 2009 event
A very big thank you to everybody who participated in Melbourne's part of this global event in 2009. We had an outstanding day meeting new people and introducing free software for all operating systems — GNU/Linux, Windows and Mac OS. We answered lots of questions ranging from beginners to experienced. We also had an amazing response from Chadstone shoppers.
Picked up a disc and want to know more? Come along to our next Linux Users Victoria Beginners Workshop. This is a free of charge event held on the third Saturday of every month. It's very welcoming event for people of all ages.
Past Events
Archived information from Software Freedom Day Melbourne 2009
For pics of SFD in 2008 see
http://flickr.com/search/?q=sfd-melb
For More Information see....
General Information about Free and Open Source Software
http://www.fsf.org/ Free Software Foundation
http://www.opensource.org/ The Open Source Initiative
http://www.iosn.net/ International Open Source Network
http://www.linux.org.au/ Linux Australia
http://www.openoffice.org/ Open Office: Office Software Package
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox: Web Browser
Press Release Archive
2006 Free and Open Source Software for Multi-Lingual Learning
2006 Linux Users of Victoria hosts an InstallFest for Software Freedom Day
Coverage from previous years
Plan your Software Freedom Day Activities Angus Kidman, Lifehacker
Australia Gears up for Software Freedom Day Liz Tay, ITNews
Software Freedom Day 2008: Updated Hamish Taylor, iTWire
Software Freedom Day 2008 Hamish Taylor, iTWire
Taking FOSS to the masses (2007) Sam Varghese, iTWire