Filipino Free and Open Source Community prepares for Software Freedom Day

PRESS RELEASE
September 13, 2011

“Freedom of Information has always been in the heart of the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Movement, “ says Mr. Rick Bahague of the Computer Professionals' Union (CPU). “Copying, sharing and improving software or information without monopolistic control is possible”. CPU and the Filipino FOSS community is celebrating the worldwide Software Freedom Day on the 17th September at the University of Santo Tomas.

Contrary to proprietary software, copying and redistribution of FOSS is encouraged. This same act is tagged as piracy by proprietary software vendors. “Know a world where no software users are pirates and software sharing is legal” invites Mr. Bahague. Mozilla Firefox, Libre Office, and Wikimedia are among the popular free software. Last year, a FOSS web server called Apache gained 59.4% of the market share, powering 152 million websites*.

More than a thousand students, local software developers, users and enthusiasts are expected to attend the celebration. Wikimedia Philippines and various school organizations are also participating in the event. Students from as far as the Bicol Region are all excited to join the celebration this year.

CPU has been organizing SFD in the country since 2004. SFD2011 is a global event organized by more than 398 FOSS groups spread in more than 100 countries. The local celebration is supported by University of Santo Tomas Computer Science Society, Wikimedia Pilipinas, D-Source Inc, Solidhosting.PH, The Office of Representative Teddy Casiño, Web Hosting Manila, Inwent, Exist, Group Aid, Net-25 and Wahoy.

Rep. Teddy Casino of Bayan Muna will be present to give updates on the status of FOSS Bill in the Philippine Congress. Bayan Muna filed the Bill with mixed reactions from the industry and local FOSS groups. "The government will continue to be dependent on proprietary and foreign software technologies unless it actively supports FOSS initiatives and gives preference to the use of FOSS in institutions," Bahague added.

Software freedom day kits will be distributed to early participants and the media to introduce them to excellent softwares without the usual restrictions in licensing fees of proprietary software. #

Reference: Mareiko Borras, SFD Coordinator
Contact: 4401430

*http://royal.pingdom.com/2011/01/04/apache-web-server-hit-a-home-run-in-2010/