SFD2013/en

Software Freedom Day Celebration and SMC's 12th anniversary celebration website's unveiling Dear friends,

The fundamental structure of humanity rests on collaboration, cooperation and sharing. In the fast moving world of information technology, this human nature manifests itself as Free Software. This infusion of fundamental human nature in Free Software ensures that the knowledge that humans have acquired over years of its existence, in its digital form, reaches everybody, across all barriers whether man made or not. Every year, the 3rd Saturday of every September is celebrated as The Software Freedom day. On this day freedom lovers around the world celebrates the ideals that drive Free Software - "The freedom to learn, to copy, to change and innovate, and to distribute", essentially something that's ingrained in every human. Activities are organized where everyone who attends are educated about Free Software, its purpose and its necessity and encouraged to contribute to this noble human endeavor.

A non-profit organization called "Software Freedom International" drives the SFD celebrations globally. This organization provides guidelines, support and coordination between entities celebrating SFD around the world. In addition, organizations and individuals in different countries celebrate SFD in their community, independent of this organization. Along those lines, in Kerala, the Free Software Users and community are planning to celebrate SFD in different districts.

This year's Software Freedom day falls on the 21st of September. On this day a bunch of Freedom Lovers are kicking off SFD celebrations at 10 am, in the Kerala Sahithya Academy Changampuzha Hall in Thrissur. In true Free Software fashion, this is a collaboration driven by Swathanthra Malayalam Computing along with Kerala Shasthra Sahithya Parishad and DAKF. Inauguration will be done by Shri K Venu and sessions will be chaired by Dr P Renjith

Major events include an introduction to Free Software tools that were developed to bring our beloved mother tongue, Malayalam, into the digital age, various talks on Free Software and discussions, and a GNU/Linux driven by volunteers to help people install popular GNU/Linux distributions into their pen-drives/laptops

At 3 pm on the same day and venue, the unveiling of SMC's 12th anniversary celebration website, by poet Anwar Ali will take place. This session will be chaired by Dr C. K. Raju.

For more information : 995551549, 9946066907, 09448063780

Venue
Kerala Sahithya Academy Changampuzha Hall, Thrissur

Timing
10 a.m. to 6 p.m

Agenda - Software Freedom Day

 * Inauguration : K Venu.
 * Chaired by : Dr P Ranjith
 * Session : Language, Culture and Technology -- by Anivar Aravind.
 * Session : SMC's forays and contributions to Free Software - Balasankar
 * Session : Introduction to Swathanthra Indian Language Processsing Application (SILPA) - Hrishikesh
 * Session : Google Summer of Code and Engineering Students - Nandaja Varma (GSOC Student mentored by SMC)
 * Session : Social Coding using Git version control system - Ershad (GSOC Student mentored by SMC)
 * Session : Diaspora - a free(dom) social network - Praveen Arimbrathodiyil
 * Session : Wikipedia, the free(dom) encyclopedia - Alfaz
 * Session : Wikibooks and publication of literature under free licenses - Manoj K
 * Movie Session : Open movies and a discussion on Chamba Open Movie Project - Sooraj Kenoth
 * Session : An introduction to Inkscape - Ark Arjun

Agenda - 12th Anniversary celebration committee formation and website inauguration

 * Chaired by : Dr C. K. Raju
 * Website Unvieling - Anwar Ali (Poet)

Social Network

 * Facebook Event Page
 * Google Plus Event Page

Posters

 * One
 * another
 * another one
 * < Any volunteers for more posters ? >

Press Release
Press Release