Every Flavour Beans

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:

1. Learn emerging trends and new developments related to the Freedom Software Movement. Charity begins at home they say ;)
2. 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.
3. Display the following(or similar) “Software Freedom Day” banner somewhere on this blog.
   
4. 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.
5. 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).
6. 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.

7. 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?