Press message for SFD 2011

Available in French

Hi!

I would like to draw your attention on an upcoming annual celebration happening the 3rd Saturday of September (so Sept.17th this year) all around the world since 2004: Software Freedom Day.

The main objective of this celebration is to spread awareness of Software Freedom and its implications by reaching out to computers users not realizing the importance of the programs they use. In these days and age of hacking, identity theft and extensive use of computer for communication purposes people should be able to trust the software they use. But users of proprietary software cannot. We have written a rather short article on the matter here http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/en/sfd/software-freedom . Another important aspect is that computer software and the underlying technology should be considered as knowledge and people should be able to share and improve upon it, providing equal opportunity even to the less lucky among us. Free and Open Source Software gives you that right, proprietary software doesn't.

While this may not be mainstream news, each year between 400 and 500 events spread over 100 countries happen to discuss and present those issues to the public. You can find the complete list for 2011 here: http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/map/ (list sortable by country at the bottom of the page)

Should you find the topic worth mentioning on September 17th Software Freedom International, the non-profit behind SFD (503(c) US registered organization) is available either by email or by phone for further information. Alternatively you can also get in touch with local organizers in your country who will surely happily give you more details.
Thank you very much for your consideration.

Kind regards,

Frederic Muller
President
Software Freedom International
tel:
email: