What do you plan to do on the Software Freedom Day(Sep 15th)?
September 15, 2007 is going to be celebrated the world over as Software Freedom Day.
What do you plan to do on this year’s Software Freedom Day? I plan to do the following in the coming days leading up to September 15:
- Learn emerging trends and new developments related to the Freedom Software Movement. Charity begins at home they say ;)
- Remind some of my closest, not so tech-savvy friends about the benefits of using Free software. Especially those who showed interest the last time I raised the topic of benefits of Free software.
- Display the following(or similar) “Software Freedom Day” banner somewhere on this blog.
- Help those who are interested in installing/configuring a GNU/Linux distribution, get them started with basic set of tools and applications and finally point them to the various sources of help/documentation(IRC, forums, mailing-lists etc.) so that they can take care of themselves from there. Hand interested people burned GNU/Linux distribution DVDs.
- Make a list of reasons why a typical Internet user, a software developer or heavy users of productivity tools should consider GNU/Linux as a possible alternative. Also tell them that they probably should stick to Windows if they expect zero learning curve or are avid fans of computer games. Make also a list of feature-filled Free software available for the Windows platform(or just give people TheOpenCD) for such die-hard Windows users. Post the lists on relevant forums and mailing-lists(where such lists would be welcome, I am not a victim of Raymondism).
- Personally, I will try to make another desperate attempt to get rid of the few non-free software that I still use on Windows(I mostly use GNU/Linux). I love the philosophy behind the Freedom software but at the same time I don’t like using a Free software even when it is not up to the mark(I commend those who do). But I am one of the first to adopt such software as soon as it comes even a little bit close to its non-Free competitor. Examples of my late adoptions are 7-zip, Foxit PDF Reader and FileZilla FTP client.
Non-Free software I still use today include(other than Windows itself): VMWare Workstation, Kaspersky Anti-virus and Nero CD/DVD Burning software. I have tried Xen, QEmu etc. but I think they are not there yet. I liked ClamWin anti-virus and still use it from a PortableApps powered USB drive but Kaspersky is the only tool that keeps me from going mad with every newly released virus or worm on the Internet. I like K3B on GNU/Linux more than Nero but K3B for Windows looks very unstable to me. Anything other good recommendations?I will try to give another chance to Free anti-virus and CD/DVD burning tools.
- Blog about the Software Freedom Day. But wait, it is already done! ;)
More Information:
Where to get more information about Software Freedom Day?
- Official Website of SFD
- Software Freedom Day Start Guide
- Poor Entry at Wikipedia
- What is Free software?
- Mark Shuttleworth on Software Freedom Day
So what is on your agenda for this year’s September 15th?
