What is software freedom day?
Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to be held this year on Saturday 20th September, 2008. Our goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business -- in short, everywhere!
The non-profit company Software Freedom International coordinates SFD at a global level, providing support, giveaways and a point of collaboration, but volunteer teams around the world organize the local SFD events to impact their own communities.
What's on in Wellington?
This year Unlimited Potential, CWA New Media, New Zealand Open Source Society (NZOSS), SuperHappyDevHouse, WellyLUG, Cafenet, Catalyst IT and Sun Microsystems have combined forces to organise a local event to be held at the Wellington Convention Centre in Wellington from 12pm - 6pm. The event will be hosted by Nat Torkington and there are two main parts to the schedule - an opensource barcamp and a hackfest.
The barcamp will involve a number of sessions throughout the day where the attendees decide on the topics at the beginning of the event and then participate in the discussions during the day. Come along with your thoughts and ideas, and start discussion around a topic that interests you and probably others too.
The hackfest will take place in a large room at the venue. Bring your computer/laptop and come and hang out all afternoon on our sofas and drink large amounts of coffee. Join with SuperHappyDevHouse hacking on whatever you like, enjoy some software demonstrations, or if you are less experienced with open source software take part in the all-day installfest with WellyLUG and others who can help you install open source software on your own machine. You can also take a look at the amazing team from One Laptop Per Child who will be working on their machines during the day.
Register here for the barcamp, hackfest or both and come along and celebrate Software Freedom Day by taking part. There will be free wifi, coffee all day at the venue, and pizza and beer as things wrap up at 6pm.
