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Enthusiasts celebrate software freedom day

The popular maxim, “Better late than never”, may very well apply to a group of local computer enthusiasts who yesterday celebrated “Software Freedom Day”.

These participants seem engrossed in this demonstration which was conducted at yesterday’s activity.

Despite the celebration occurring a week late, the special forum held at the NCERD building, witnessed an impressive turnout as persons gathered to learn more about computer software.

The session was organised by the Guyana Linux Users Group - one of the 500 teams from 90 countries - who celebrated “Software Freedom Day” this year. This group has been celebrating the event since 2005.

According to one of the organisers, Vidyaratha Kissoon, the purpose of the session was “to educate the public about the virtues and availability of Free and Open Source Software.” He explained that the forum was open to all members of the public including those who knew very little about computers.

When Stabroek News was on the scene, Malisa Richards from the Kuru Kuru Co-operative College presented on Moodle, which is one of the more popular software programmes used to develop online learning applications. She highlighted that several local institutions use this programme including the University of Guyana and St Stanislaus College. Further, she said that this programme is ideal for local use since it is inexpensive, simple to understand, and can be easily accessed using dial-up internet connections.

Apart from six presentations, there were also demonstrations and open discussions.

The open discussions proved to be very engaging since the participants asked questions and discussed several computer-related topics.

Michael Dabydeen, the Network Administrator at GuySuCo and one of the presenters, told this newspaper that the forum was both interesting and thought provoking. He was particularly impressed at how keen the participants were and this, he said, was demonstrated in their active involvement in the different activities.

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8 Responses to “Enthusiasts celebrate software freedom day”

Deon Thomas
on September 28th, 2008 11:55 am

if anyone needs a copy of elive please send me an email

[Reply to this]
amen-ra
on September 28th, 2008 12:17 pm

Nice to know guyana has computer enthusiasts, and are keepin up with the latest softwares.

[Reply to this]
drumup_change
on September 28th, 2008 1:29 pm

“Michael Dabydeen, the Network Administrator at GuySuCo and one of the presenters, told this newspaper that the forum was both interesting and thought provoking. He was particularly impressed at how keen the participants were and this, he said, was demonstrated in their active involvement in the different activitie”

………this is interesting!!…………….but!! this word come with aprice…….the word property rights and property security!!………china back is up against the wall……..oh! …….and another thing ……..careful how you use unpaid softwares…….it could be wipe out leaving you asking question about your operating system……….property rights!!!…check it out…

[Reply to this]
Administrator
on September 29th, 2008 11:34 pm

SN is now completely Open Source.

[Reply to this]
saxtor
on October 2nd, 2008 10:01 pm

so whats is that supposed to mean drumup_change rapidshare rules the network and php is the best open source language bec we create warez websites and share!

[Reply to this]
LINUXWAIT
on October 4th, 2008 9:22 am

The Windows community and its software solution offerings is so vast, it is unresistable to computing newbabes. It will take another decade or more to match this reality in the Linux world. By then, the entire computing landscape will be reshaped to something entirely new. Linux will have its day someday, but unfortunately, that day is no not very soon ,because the Windows community is not going to let it be. Microsoft is only angered when Linux does something exciting. The Microsoft response is the usual Lion’s roar, and all the Linux attention becomes submerged until the Linux community has something to shouth about.

Again, Linux will have it day someday!

Linux fan telling it as it is!

[Reply to this]
Deon Thomas
on October 20th, 2008 7:06 pm

every day is a linuxday “LINUXWAIT”, you just have not seen it yet.

[Reply to this]
Vidyaratha Kissoon
on November 26th, 2008 8:45 pm

We did not get the free laptops…

From http://www.software freedomday. org/Competition2008

Following a highly successful SFD 2008 - with 50% more teams registered than in 2007 - we are pleased to announce the winners of the competition for the best event:

*

FOSS Nepal Community (team leader Subir Pradhanang) - team report PDF 7.4MB
*

SFD Nicaragua (team leader Leandro Gomez) - team report 1.6MB
*

DabaweGNU (team leader Holden Hao) - team report

Congratulations to these teams, and many thanks to Subir, Leandro and Holden for leading their events and telling the world about their how it went!

Each team will be receiving a prize of a pair of OLPC laptops.

The winning entries were selected for the scope of their SFD activities, the number of people reached (particularly from the wider, non-technical community) and the quality of the reporting. However we received many high quality entries - a total of almost fifty submissions - and special mention also goes to:

*

Guyana (team leader Vidyaratha Kissoon) - team report
*

Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (Dev Anand Teelucksingh) - team report
*

freeIT (team leader Mylene Sereno) - team report

Thank you to all teams (over 500 teams in almost 90 countries) for their efforts in making SFD 2008 such a great success, and don’t forget to put Saturday 19 Septermber 2009 in your calendars!

[Reply to this]