Software Freedom Day

Software Freedom Day (SFD) is an annual worldwide celebration of Free Software Foundation. SFD is a public education effort with the aim of increasing awareness of Free Software and its virtues, and encouraging its use.

Software Freedom Day (SFD) @Villupuram

The event, most of the common people explore more from the digital world. The event was celebrating by all sorts of people. The event name is “SOFTWARE FREEDOM DAY”. Yes, we are all celebrate this precious day as the 4 th time here. This event is held at Villupuram on 15.10.2017 at Universty College Of Engineering, Villupuram. Nearly 200-300 members were participated. College students, School students, Working professionals, Common public were participated in SFD'2K17. It was organized by Villupuram Glug(VGLUG).The main objective of this event is create awareness among the general public about Free software, privacy, alternatives of proprietary software, viruses etc.

The following stalls were placed on SFD,
List of stalls :-

Various GNU/Linux Distros
Blender,GIMP,Inkscape
Scratch and Stellarium
Android on Privacy
Wiki and Commons
Data Visualization
Text to speech, Tamil Computing
Kids on FOSS
Open Street Maps
Open Hardware
Gaming

The event inauguration was started at 9.00 am, all the volunteers of Villupuram Glug were wrapping at 8.00am.The event was inaugurate by Dr.Senthil(DEAN of university college Villupuram).

Philosophy:
For Free Software , the main moto is Philosophy. This philosophy stall was took by Balu sir from FSHM(Free Software & Hardware Movement of India). He was sharing what is Free Software?, Main objectives FOSS and what is the different between free software and proprietary software.

Text to speech :
Most of people have no idea about Tamil Computing. But nowadays all sorts of technology are coming in their native language. Sounds cool, right! This was done by Mr.Khaleel, Android developer who is working in TVF Media Labs. He explained how text to speech is working and what is tamil computing. And he gave idea about how can we contribute in this kinds of projects.

Android on privacy:

This stall was took by Mr.Prasanna from FSHM, and he was sharing knowledge about privacy and gave live demos using android mobiles. It was really amazed the people that how proprietary software get our data from us.

Open hardware:
This stall was handled by Mr.Ravivarman, CEO of Dream India Innovation. He was sharing knowledge about Open Hardware and he gave some demos using Arduino board. Especially College Students and School buds were very interested on this stall to learn this technology.

Linux Distros :
This stall was handled by Mr.Durai, Mr.Vishnu,Mr. Srinivasan. They are the volunteers of VGLUG. In this stall, we displayed nearly 7 linux distros in this event. This clearly proves that lots and lots of choices we can utilise in free software. And we distribute the distros to the common people for free. This gives an open way to learn and explore more in digital world.

Blender:
It is a 3D animation tool. Nowadays many gaming, movies are done by using this high-tech tool. It was explained by Mr.Sathish and Mr.Vimal, one of the volunteers of VGLUG. They both gave designed 3D objects and people also amazed to see this 3D magics.

Data Visualization:
Ms.Harthi(Volunteer of FSHM) & Mr.Rahul(Volunteer of VGLUG) gave a clear explanation of Data visualisation. And they described the entire scope of data visulisation. People interestingly learn this new technology. This was specially useful for college students.

Scratch:
This is a simple kind of FOSS software that can give clear demo of each syntax of codes. This was explained by Mr.Manimaran, who is a Android Developer working in IT field. He gave proper description of each code and code haters can definitely love coding, if they use this scratch software.

Kids on FOSS:
Mr.Dilip, Govt. School English Teacher, who got Teacher of the year,Tamil Nadu. He introduced special stall for kids. Many school buds were eagerly learn more from this stall. This was a kind of Science exhibition stall, explaining that how elements could get the chemical reactions.

Stellarium:

This FOSS software was handled by Ms.Rogini and Ms.Keerthana, those who are working in IT field. They both gave live demo on stellarium and the sky view. All were surprised to see the sky magics done by stellarium.

Wiki & Commons:
If we want something to know, we obviously get the answer with the help of Wikipedia. Yes, it is a major central info repository. It is available in many languages. That’s why people love it and easy to access it also. Wiki & commons handled by Ms.Hari Priya, one of the Volunteer in Villupuram Glug. She explained that how to localize wiki articles, wiki ebooks, Wikisource, etc… in tamil language. Also gave a demo of tamil localisation for tamil ebooks.

Gimp & Inkscape:
Special tools used for designing posters, 2D objects,etc… This was handled by Ms.Vijilakshmi, Volunteer of VGLUG. She taught how to designning using posters, simple basic tools of Gimp. It was perfectly helpful to those who are interested to learn designing.

This event was successfully celebrated with the great support of many good hearted people. We are grateful to Ucev Dean Mr.Senthil, HOD's of Ucev Mrs.Kavitha, Mr.Arjun. And our special thanks to the big supportive persons Mr.Karkee, Mr.Khaleel, Mr.Sathish Kumar, Mr.RahulKanth, Mr.Manimaran and to the Co-ordinators of this SFD'18 Vishnu,Viji lakshmi,Hari Priya,Vimal,Rajeev,Guru. We also very grateful to College Professors, School Teachers, UCEV students, Mailam College students,IFET College students,VRS college students and our Well wishers. Thanks a lot one and all. This event happily celebrated by all sorts people and next year we have to join our hands again my dear friends. Finally Mr. Balu gifted books to SFD Co-Ordinators.

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