Software Freedom Day 2010

From Dallas Makerspace

Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 Objectives of Software Freedom Day 1.2 What is Software Freedom and Why is it Important? 1.3 Free Software, Open Source, Copyleft, what's the relationship!? 1.4 Photos of Previous Dallas SFD events 1.5 Here's How the rest of the world does it 2 The 2010 DFW Software Freedom Day Event 3 Presentation Ideas 4 Official SFD Information 5 Team 6 Location 7 ToDo List 8 Ideas

Introduction

On September 18 each year, people all over the world celebrate Freedom Day. It's a day when free software developers and users raise awareness in their local community of the benefits software freedoms bring. Some cities have huge events with music, talks, vendors, even cheerleaders, parades, and feasts. Dallas, on the other hand, has largely done nothing. In 2007 a few members of the local Ubuntu LUG met at Tempest Tea on Lovers Lane and handed out Ubuntu CDs. I stopped by and chatted for a while. In 2008 the same group met at a Dave and Busters in Frisco, TX and I brought a load of FSF stickers and goodies. Neither event was well publicized or attended and there was no event at all in 2009. This seemed like an ideal project for Dallas Makerspace to take on in 2010, so here we are. We want to hold a bigger, better publicized event this year.

Objectives of Software Freedom Day

• to celebrate software freedom and the people behind it
• to foster a general understanding of software freedom, and encourage adoption of free software and open standards
• to create more equal access to opportunities through the use of participatory technologies
• to promote constructive dialogue on responsibilities and rights in the information society
• to be inclusive of organizations and individuals that share our Vision

What is Software Freedom and Why is it Important?

Proprietary software takes away control of your computer from you and gives it that control to others. Proprietary software takes away control of your media by adding DRM (Digital Restrictions Management). Proprietary software takes away your freedoms to use, copy, understand, and improve your programs. Free Software gives those freedoms back. Specifically, free software guarantees users four essential freedoms:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

For more see these documents and videos:

The Free Software Definition - The Free Software Foundation's official definition

Open Source Software Definition - Open Source is a newer term coined to describe a subset of Free Software, with less emphasis on freedom

What is free software and why is it so important? by Matt Lee

How software freedom underpins human rights in our technological age by Pia Waugh

Stephen Fry explains Free Software:

Free Software, Open Source, Copyleft, what's the relationship!?

This Venn diagram was created by Hung Chao-Kuei for the Free Software Foundation to show the relationship between free software variants (on the left) and non-free software variants (on the right).

Photos of Previous Dallas SFD events

FSF SFD stickers

2007 Dallas SFD event

2008 Dallas SFD event More photos

Here's How the rest of the world does it

RMS (Richard Stallman) at SFD 2008 in Boston	SFD 2006 in Nepal	SFD 2007 in Hanoi
SFD 2009 in Nepal	SFD 2005 in Terres de l'Ebre	SFD 2009 in Srilanka

The 2010 DFW Software Freedom Day Event

We'll keep this section updated as more information becomes available.

At present we can promise free (as in free beer) swag from the Free Software Foundation, and Canonical. That means Ubuntu GNU/Linux CDs, T-Shirts, stickers, FSF newsletters, and more. We're planning short talks about wide range of free software related topics. We're working on talks about Arduino, Robotics, Server Management, and Perl so far, with more to come soon (see the list of proposed topics below). Current plan is for an afternoon and evening time range, maybe noon to midnight or something like that. No location nailed down yet but we're working on it.

If you have any ideas or want to join us, get in touch!

The best way to communicate with us on the #dprg irc channel (no irc program? try webchat).

Presentation Ideas

• Apache Lamp
  • Apache LAMP meetup Group
  • Jul 28: Emailed Apache LAMP meetup admins
• Blender (free software graphics program)
  • Blender website
• Computer security (why free software is secure)
  • DC214 Dallas DefCon Group
  • Jul 28: Emailed DC214
  • Jul 30: Isac Balder said our request was forwarded to their mailing list
• DFWFreeNet presentation (DFWFreeNet)
• Drupal Open Source Content Management Software
  • Dallas Drupal User Group
  • Drupal Website
• ease of installation of GNU/Linux vs Windows on same hardware
• Fedora GNU/Linux
  • Fedora Ambassadors
  • DFW Fedora Ambassador
  • Jul 26: talked to inode0 on fedora irc, he passed request to internal list
  • Jul 27: Adam Miller of Huntsville, TX may be able to help
  • Jul 27: David Duncan of Austin, TX may be able to help
  • Aug 24: talked to inode0 again, added our event to Fedora Event wiki
  • Aug 24: email Adam and David again, re-requested help getting Fedora swag
• free alternatives to commonly used proprietary software
• GNU/Linux in general
  • NTLUG
    • Jul 27: Patrick R. Michaud let us know NTLUG meeting is on SFD
    • I've had no luck trying to contact these groups. Can't find an email address and have gotten no response in IRC. If anyone knows a way of contacting them, please make them aware of this event and ask them to contact us.
  • FWLUG
• HP
  • Jul 28: Paul Bouchier can speak on HP's use of free software for server management
• OpenSolaris, or other Non-GNU/Linux Unix topics
  • DFWUUG
  • Jul 28: emailed DFWUUG
• Open Source
  • Open Source User Group
• Perl
  • DFW Perl Mongers
  • Jul 26: email sent to mailing list requesting participation
  • Jul 27: Nick Perez can do a short talk
  • Jul 27: Patrick R. Michaud can do a short talk
• PHP
  • DallasPHP
• Python
  • Dallas Fort Worth Pythoneers
  • Jul 28: email sent to DFW Pythoneers meetup admin
  • Jul 28: Brad Allen forwarded our request to their mailing list
• Robotics and free software
  • a demo of some robots would be cool
  • Dallas Personal Robotics Group
  • Jul 28: Dale Wheat can speak on Arduino and/or robots
• Ruby
• Smart Phone freedom comparison
• What is free software, how is different from open source, proprietary sw, etc.

Official SFD Information

• Software Freedom Day website
• SFD Event Location Wiki
• SFD Event Location Map
• SFD Official Artwork
• SFD Official flyer

Team

• Steve Rainwater
• Peter Smith

Location

Any ideas for a location go here. We probably need a large room with a stage big enough for live music. Two smaller rooms for talks would be great (maybe a free software users track and a free software introduction tract). Some place with food and drink availability would be nice.

• Sons of Hermann Hall - up to 400 people, sound stage, bar, but no private rooms
  • 19 Aug - waiting for response from a variety of local contacts on space recommendations

• • 19 Aug - waiting for response on availability and price

• Wyly education center
  • 19 Aug - toured space waiting for availability and price info

• Dallas Makerspace (not ideal but a good fallback if we can't find anything better)

• Hal Samples Gallery, Deep Ellum facebook

• Mokah Bar / Life in Deep Ellum
  • great place but looks like it would cost way too much

• KERA has a community room - find out location and cost

• Half Price Books community room
  • 26 Aug - sent availability query

ToDo List

• Set up our team at SFD Wiki and Location map
• Arrange official support swag (e.g. Ubuntu CDs and SFD stuff)
• Contact FSF to see if we can get FSF swag this year
  • Our FSF contact is freedeb (aka Deborah Nicholson)
• Contact RedHat to see if they'll provide any CDs or swag
  • Our Fedora contact is inode0 (aka John Rose), send him a reminder if needed
  • Fedora resource (swag) kit requests
• send email to DFW Perl Mongers list
• Line up whatever talks, demos, entertainment we can get
• Set location
• Notify local user groups and special interest groups
• Notify University groups
• Announce where ever possible
• Print DMS SFD T-Shirts
• Print official flyers
• Print DMS flyers
• Steal underpants
•  ?
• Profit!

Ideas

• Food
  • BBQ - this is Texas, we should appeal to the masses
  • I like the idea of providing food but it could add substantially to the cost, let's see what kind of sponsors or financial contribution we get before planning anything here.

• Entertainment
  • Fire Dancers?
  • Local cheerleaders?
  • Live Music (Annie Benjamin, Rocket Girl, songs about freedom? - a country band of some sort)
  • Lollie Bombs (freedom of expression?)

• Sponsors
  • Google?
  • any local companies do free software / open source software?