Saturday August 28 has been declared Software Freedom Day and the Go Open Source campaign and Linux user groups are hosting “install-fests” across South Africa.
In celebration of “the public’s right to choose free and open-source software”, the install-fests will be presented in major city centres around the country, including Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban, said a Go Open Source statement on Tuesday.
“Software Freedom Day is a worldwide celebration of the basic rights computer users have to choose and to gain access to computer software without having to pay licence fees or a commercial price tag,” said the statement.
Members of the public will be able to take their computers to one of the national install-fests to have open-source software installed.
The past few years have seen a tremendous growth of support for open-source software, including Linux, the popular free operating system.
According to Go Open Source, which was launched earlier this year, this growth is due to the wealth of user-friendly open-source applications, from the very advanced to those designed for new and inexperienced computer users. South Africa has become one of the leading countries in Linux and open-source adoption.
Go Open Source expects up to 10Â 000 visitors at the various install-fests.
“In the spirit of the freedom that open-source software aims to foster, the Go Open Source campaign, in collaboration with the various Linux user groups, has gone to great efforts to ensure that all users interested in the benefits of free software can gain first-hand experience and assistance in installing, setting up and using free software by simply going to one of the install-fests in their city,” said Thomas Black, open-source programme manager at the Shuttleworth Foundation, a Go Open Source member company.
“Contrary to popular belief, open-source software is suitable for every computer user. You don’t need any specific skills above those you need for any other computer software and there are a wealth of applications and programs freely available to anyone.
“Any user with any operating system can begin making use of open-source software and save the money that they would normally pay out on license fees,” said Black.
Free and open-source software will be available at all the install-fests, according to the statement, as well as demonstrations and displays of the latest computer software available.
Since the launch of the Go Open Source campaign in May — a two-year, R18-million investment by Hewlett Packard, the Shuttleworth Foundation, Mark Shuttleworth and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research — more than 3Â 000 users have obtained a copy of the campaign’s OpenCD OSS compilation. The CD is a collection of open-source software that will run on both Windows and Linux platforms.
To find out the locations of all the install-fests and information on each event visit www.go-opensource.org.