Sri Lanka Open Source Software conference on software piracy

The local Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) advocacy community is organizing a two day conference and tutorial session on using free and open source software applications in the Microsoft Windows Platform. Brian Behlendorf, a long standing and important figure in the open source software movement, will be delivering the key note address at the event which will be held from June 26 - 27.

Brian was a primary developer of the Apache Web server, the most popular web server software on the Internet, and a founding member of the Apache Group, which later became the Apache Software Foundation. He also served as President of the Foundation for three years.

While there is a trend in the industry moving towards GNU/Linux and Free and Open Source Software, Microsoft Windows is still a dominating force. Many applications have been developed around it and many continue to do so. Most of this software is also proprietary and includes heavy license fees. Proprietary software may cost anything from a few hundred dollars to millions of dollars for licensing fees alone. As a developing country, most individuals and even companies cannot afford such prices and resort to using illegal copies of software. Pirated software may cost only a fraction of the actual price but the implications can be far greater.

“FOSS-ed is a popular conference programme organized by the foss.lk community. This being the fourth such conference, we wanted to create awareness among the general public about FOSS applications that you can easily download and use while continuing to be on the Microsoft Windows Platform.” Said Karthiga Ratnam, Chairperson of FOSS-ed for Windows. “There are so many good pieces of software which you don’t have to pay lots of money for licensing fees. We hope that by learning about freely available alternatives out there we can help to stop software piracy in the country.” added Ms. Ratnam about the event which is also supported by the American Chamber of Commerce as part of their “Get Real on IPR” Ccampaign.

While there is a trend in the industry moving towards GNU/Linux and Free and Open Source Software Microsoft Windows is still a dominating force. Many applications have been developed around it and many continue to do so. Most of this software is also proprietary and includes heavy license fees. Proprietary software may cost anything from a few hundred dollars to millions of dollars for licensing fees alone.

As a developing country, most individuals and even companies cannot afford such prices and resort to using illegal copies of software. Pirated software may cost only a fraction of the actual price but the implications can be far greater.

FOSS-ed for Windows will cover various topics focusing on FOSS applications and solutions ranging from Web browsers and mail clients to graphics software and content management systems.

The event is sponsored by Google, Intel, Microsoft, Ceylon Linux, eBuilder, ThinkCube, Virtusa and WSO2. It is supported by American Chamber of Commerce, The ICT Agency, The National Intellectual Property Office and University of Colombo School of Computing. For registrations see

-FT

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Eric Mockensturm has launched a wiki

Open authoring and open review

Eric Mockensturm has launched a wiki, Open Source Publishing 2.0, outlining a proposal on which he is inviting collaboration. Excerpt:

The idea of openness is gaining much momentum in our society as open source software becomes more popular, and vast amounts of information and data are openly available via the internet. The academic community has been one of the biggest proponents of openness as it is primarily concerned with education….However, one curiously closed system that is of primary importance to the academic community is the publishing and reviewing system….

Open source publishing refers to the openness of the authoring and reviewing process while open access refers to the openness to the reader. These two paradigms are related but need not be dependent on one another. However, it is the PI’s hope that open source publishing will lead to open access….

Update. Also see Eric’s blog post about the proposal (June 18, 2007) and the comments it has generated.

Credits to Peter Suber the creator of the game Nomic and a leading voice in the open access movement. He is the senior research professor of philosophy at Earlham College, the open access project director at Public Knowledge, and a senior researcher at SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition)

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