Software Freedom Day

Software freedom day is celebrating every year in the month of September 3rd week all over the world. the main moto of this day to Create awareness among the people about what is software freedom and free software in the markets(free means freedom).

Free Software -> Freedom to study, copy, modify, share the software.

Planning

One month before we stared planning for SFD 2019 and discussing about what are the stalls shall we include in this event. People who are attend the meetup regularly are included in this discussion. They share their suggestions. We discussed about Venue discussion, Date confirmation, Chief Guests details, VGLUG Awardees, Stalls and Volunteers allocation, Poster design, Fund Collection plan, Invite colleges, advertise about SFD.

Finally we have decided 12+ stalls and start to search venue.

Venue Conformation

Our organization members searched more venue and requested many places to celebrate the event. Finally they are directly meet the principle of MRICRC HR. SEC SCHOOL and got the permission to conduct SFD 2019 on their school.

Date confirmation

This year SFD planed to celebrate September 29 in MRIC & RC Hr. Sec. School, Villupuram.

Chief Guests

Mr. Ravikumar – Villupuram MP.
Mr. Ramamurthy – Ex-MLA, Vigravandi.
Mr. Dhayalan – Saradha vidyalaya correspondent.

VGLUG Awardees

Mr. Dhilip – National Awardee For Teacher, Villupuram
Mozilla Tamilnadu – Team
Mr. Selvamurali – Founder of Visual Media Technologies

Stalls selection and Volunteers Allocation

We have decided to put 12+ stalls in SFD and allocate 2 or 3 volunteers to each stalls. Every Volunteers start to prepare documents, presentation , software for their stall.

Poster Design

This time SFD poster designed both Tamil and English languages. Thanks to Mr. Vignesh for this awesome posters.

English Poster – Designed by Vignesh, Pondy

Fund Collection

VGLUG organizations funds are checked and Event budget was prepared. Volunteer collected fund from their friends and organizations. Some other Free Software Activist also contribute for SFD.

Note : Contributors list mentioned end of this post.

Inviting Guest

Mr. Dr. R. Ravikumar (M.P of Villupuram) was invited by our organization Senior member Mr.Karkee,he accept the invitation and agreed to get the honour.
Mr. COM. R. RAMAMURTHY (Ex-MLA of Vikravandi) was invited by Mr. Sathish Kumar, he accept the invitation and agreed to get the honour.
Mr.R.Dhayalan (Managing Director of Saradha Vidhyalaya School)was invited by our organisation Senior member Mr.Karkee, he accept the invitation and agreed to get the honour.

Inviting colleges

College students are invited by the new members of VGLUG (students who all are getting python training from VGLUG). The Team was get splitted and covered nearby college around Villupuram.

Ajith Kumar,Ramaiah,Deepak,Ponnelan,Rajeshwari
& Sandhya inviting UCEV college students.

Then some of the volunteers going very important places in villupuram especially computer based places stick the Posters for public view. By this other people help to know about the event and try to participate. At the same time getting fund from various friends and colleges.

Previous Day Efforts

The school was visited by our team mates and stall allocation plan was prepared on 28th September 2019 evening the stall arrangements are done and the location board are placed in the school.

We planned to give Tamil based gifts for guest. So that our team member Mr.Karkee and Khaleel meet Mr.COM. Santhosh narayan artist. He is really very well artist. He painted Tamizhthai(keezadi). Thanks to Santhosh artists he prepared the art into shield and frames. Manimaran & Keerthana collected the awards momento shield and frames from Chennai.

Ramiah designed small banners for every stalls with name, logo and small description of the stall softwares.

Notice Distribution

Actually every year SFD we make small notice with simple Tamil explanation about SFD. Print and distribute the notice with news paper. Which is help to know about SFD every one(common people, children, students, professionals) in Villupuram circle. This year also that notice was designed by Mr. Manimaran. Haripriya relation help to print that SFD notice with low cost.

The notice were distributed with news papers at the date of SFD over night (2am to 4) with help of Vishnu, Srinivasan, Khaleel, Sathish.

Manimaran prepared the presentation(Software Freedom Day – 2019 Catalogue) of SFD stalls guide it is very help everyone know about the stalls and follow up in future.

Software Freedom Day – 2019 Catalogue – https://gitlab.com/villupuramglug/backup/raw/master/Presentation/SFD_2019/sfd_2019_stalls.pdf

On Event Day

Every volunteer assemble 2 hours before the event start. All the volunteers are prepare their stalls and arrangement for visitors, guests and people.

Small Volunteers meet – Before the event start

Our chief guest Mr. Ravikumar M.P of Villupuram inaugurated the function and gave a speech about the current technology and data privacy.

After speech MP visited Stalls with Mr. Dhilip National awardee for teacher & Mr. Selva Murali founder of Visual media technologies.

Keerthana explained about Stellarium stall to Mr. Ravikumar MP

Registration

People who are attended SFD initially they registered their details in registration stall. At the time of registration we also collect the information How you Know about this event through friends, college or poster.

Event Summary

Lot of people visited the SFD stalls and getting free software knowledge from volunteers.

Following stalls are placed in SFD

1 – Philosophy

Handled by: Khaleel & Karkee

Philosophy is one of the main moto of this event, Khaleel and Karkee explained to people about What is Free Software? Freedoms of Free software, Main objectives FOSS and what is the different between free software and proprietary software. Khaleel explained Tamil Localization. How to use and change the content to Tamil in Mozilla Browser.

2 – Distros in Linux

Handled by: Ajith & Vicky

In this stall, we displayed nearly 7 linux distros. This clearly proves that lots and lots of choices to alternate from properitary operating system.And we distribute the distros to the common people.

3 – Wikipedia and OSM

Handled by: Viji, Ramaiah, Annapoorani ,Barani & Soundarya.

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 and another important stall included is that OSM(Open Street Map) is a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world. Rather than the map itself, the data generated by the project is considered its primary output.This is Map navigator we can do whatever we do in google maps. Microsoft released the satellite images for free using this free open street map and we must give our time to document our areas through edit in this map so, we can use more in the future.

4 – Android Alternatives

Handled by: Manimaran, Dhilip & Rajeshwari.

In this stall explained about privacy of android, FOSS alternatives of android apps, What are the apps are safe to use, demonstrate F-Droid and various FOSS apps.

F-Droid is a community-maintained software repository for Android, similar to the Google Play store. F-Droid contains only Free and Open source android applications. This app is like a play store we can download many apps for free in this platform. source code link for each app should be listed in this F-droid app.

More details : https://www.slideshare.net/ManimaranK7/foss-for-android-227465477

5 – Hacking

Handled by: Adam, Rifa, Vasanth & Gopinath

Basics and fundamental of hacking and safety measures to protect our privacy from hacker. Also, explained what is hacking, ethical hacking and some tools.

6 – Kalzium & KTrutle

Handled by: Loganathan

Kalzium is the educational which allows an exploration of elements and properties, their classification and is based on the Periodic Table of Elements. It is possible to group and visualize elements based on various physical and chemical properties.The tutorials and explanation are taken from the volunteers of VGLUG.

KTurtle is suitable for teaching kids the basics of math, programming and geometry. It’s a KDE Desktop Environment licensed under the GNU General Public License. The main features of TurtleScript is the ability to translate the commands into the speaking language of the programmer

7 – Virtual Reality & Voice Mozilla

Handled by: Vishwa & Mozilla team

VR is the booming technology in 3D environmental.Virtual Reality (VR) is the use of computer technology to create a simulated environment. Unlike traditional user interfaces, VR places the user inside an experience. Instead of viewing a screen in front of them, users are immersed and able to interact with 3D worlds.

Common Voice is a crowdsourcing project started by Mozilla to create a free database for speech recognition software.

8 – Scratch & Stellarium

Handled by: Keerthana, Muthuraj & Kowsalya

Stellarium is a educational Software which is used to learn about the space, its look like real-time sky view, using this we can able to see the measurement of how long the stars and planet and located from earth and vice versa.

Scratch is a free programming language and online community where you can create your own interactive stories, games, and animations.

9 – Libre Office

Handled by: Ethiraj, Vigneshwaran & Suganthi

LibreOffice is a free and open-source office suite, a project of The Document Foundation. Libre Office is the open source source Software used the parallel of Microsoft office.

10 – Gimp, Inkscape & Blender

Handled by: Guru, Hari, Inba, Latha & Nandhini.

Gimp, Inkscape & Blender these are the Graphical design open source software which is used for Designing, editing, Poster Making, video editing and 3D designing propose, the tool are distributed to the interested people who are attend the event.

11 – Open Hardware

Handled by: Mr.Ravivarman & Team.

Open-source hardware consists of physical artifacts of technology designed and offered by the open-design movement. Both free and open-source software and open-source hardware are created by this open-source culture movement and apply a like concept to a variety of components.

The Hardware equipment are displayed to the visitor and the clear explanation of working and usage of displayed open hardware.

12 – Who We Are : நாங்கள் யார்

In this stall explained about VGLUG and their activities, how to join with VGLUG, what we done in past, what we do in currently and what we will do in future all are shared with visitors. Digital Nankodai also getting at the time of SFD.

Video Coverage

Video coverage was done by the team Comrade Talkies (YouTube channel) and photo coverage was done by Mr.Dinakaran & Mr. Krishana (Kainaatu Studio, Villupuram) and Team. Some television media also covered this SFD (Vendhar, Dhinamani, Indian Express).

Photos : https://photos.app.goo.gl/vsGtkXu9uY7xiFy16

Video coverage : https://youtu.be/-EnPdCUe6tA

Book Stall

This time VGLUG organize Tamil literature book section which contain many rare book collection of Tamil literature are displayed and sell to the visitors.

Success Meet

The event was successful completed at evening 5 pm and nearly 1000+ people visited. End of the day the Awards were distributed to the guests and small memorable Gift (எது நல்ல பள்ளி,ஆஷா) books are given to the volunteers. End of the section VGLUG team whole heartly selected the new representative Miss. Viji. She addressed that “this is great honour to me and i will do my duty with pleasure “and finally end with volunteer group photo.