Software Freedom Day 2010

The SFD Network organized a week-long celebration of Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) in line with the theme "Change is FOSSible!", led by the Computer Professionals' Union (CPU), UP Network for Educational Technology (UPNET), the College of Education - Educational Technology Area, the UP Linux Users' Group (UnPLUG) and in full cooperation with the Office of Bayan Muna Partylist Rep. Teddy Casiño.

The activities were as follows:

1. The FOSS week exhibit launch at the House of Representatives (HoR) on Monday September 13 showcased the different FOSS projects and efforts of government institutions, non-profit organizations and industry players. Around 100 participants flocked to the event to kick-off the week-long celebration.

Bayan Muna Partylist staff shared their documentation of the activity. Here is Bayan Muna Partylist Rep. Teddy Casiño's speech for the opening ceremonies.

"If software were adobo, then FOSS would be its recipe. We believe that this recipe is something that should be shared among everybody. Nobody owns it. Nobody should force you to buy a recipe for you to enjoy adobo."

2. A parallel pre-SFD launch event was organized by the team at the Lipa City College in Batangas Province, in cooperation with their school-based organization, the Circle of Programmers and Users. No less than 1,500 students and faculty participated in the event that ran from 1pm - 6pm covering Open Office basics, an Ubuntu desktop tour, and an introduction to FOSS for Health.

Lead organizer CPU sent a crack team of speakers and covered the event.

3. A round-table discussion spearheaded by Rep. Casiño and sponsored by the congressional commission on Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) was held on Wednesday September 15 at the HoR to discuss the FOSS Act of 2010 and the role of all stakeholders in advancing the FOSS legislative agenda. Representatives from the FOSS community such as the industry players from Technix Solutions, informatics researchers in the Philippine General Hospital, non-government organizations such as CPU, and government institutions such as the League of Municipalities of the Philippines.

4. The team conducted a workshop training on Open Office and Ubuntu for congressional staff and guest students at the ICTS e-learning center of the HoR. Around 50 congressional staff and guest students were given a whole day of learning the interfaces of these FOSS tools.

Attendee Vins Balingan shared their photos of the workshop to the team, and uploaded by JCPU's lead coordinator Gladys Regalado in her web album.

5. The main celebration of SFD Philippines 2010 was held at the College of Education Theater in UP Diliman with around 700 participants attending the morning plenary sessions and spreading out to the seven different afternoon breakout sessions which spilled well into the early evening, that covered such topics as FOSS for the arts, FOSS content management systems, FOSS for education, FOSS projects and suites for NGOs and advocacies, FOSS mobile technologies, and FOSS scripting. You can check the entire programme here.

Bayan Muna's Charlotte Job Despuez covered the event from start to finish. It was unprecedentedly the most attended SFD celebration in the Philippines to date with the most simultaneous learning sessions, and culminated with a "FOSS" human formation at the UP Sunken Garden grounds:

Here is a compilation of the presentations by the participating educators from the college's Educ 190 classes (do remember to properly credit and inform the presentors if you are to use these resources, thanks!) from the FOSS for Education breakout session.

Ms. Ren Guray from UPNET shared her post-SFD sentiments in a post at her blog, the Heidi Effect:

"We had sweaty techies and geeks getting lost finding our breakout session venues. The resource speakers had to pay their own fare and buy their own food. Not even free drinking water was provided. But still everyone stayed! All for the love of FOSS and, I suspect, some undying hope to win some minor goodies."

Ms. Florida Ortiz posted about their experience in Exist Global's blogs:

"We came in at 10am – just in time for the start of the program. There were so many students I became excited for bossing myself! The UP College of Education Auditorium was uber jam-packed they had to set up chairs in the lobby and project what was happening in the audi."

Participants from the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila created an Animoto video of their SFD experience:

The SFD Organizing Team called for a reaffirmation to the principle of free software for the beneficence of the community in the event press release:

"In 2010, the Philippines saw the ICT sector mobilize for in guarding the nation's first nation-wide automated elections, contributing its technical know-how in advocating for a transparent, fair and credible electoral exercise. The FOSS community contributed to the efforts, with free and open electoral monitoring tools such as the Vote Report PH (http://votereportph.org) powered by Drupal and Ushahidi. SFD Philippines 2010 seeks to make this effort a year-round advocacy."

Newsbytes Philippines, one of the nation's leading online tech news resources, covered the entire week here:

"This year’s celebration of Software Freedom Day (SFD) was extra tenacious, with advocates of free and open-source software (FOSS) conducting forums in the academe and inside the halls of Congress. Leading the charge is Bayan Muna party-list representative Teddy Casino, main author of the FOSS bill in Congress, who opened the 3rd House of Representatives FOSS Week at the Batasan grounds in Quezon City."

The Manila Times column of scientists group AGHAM ran a contribution by SFD 2010 coordinator and CPU new media coordinator Mr. Leon Dulce, writing about FOSS, Open Source Hardware (OSH), and Open Access to Technology in general:

"The past administrations have long touted the Philippines as the next Asian IT Tiger economy, but the lack of a fundamental understanding of the problem stunts us into a nation of outsourced peopleware. To make this kitten into a tiger, we must make FOSS and OSH a priority in our nation’s ICT agenda. To make this legitimate national concern possible, we must educate the people in the need for an open access to technology to ensure change bottom-up.

In the coming 2010 Philippine celebration of Software Freedom Day (SFD), the international celebration of FOSS, we aim to discuss the role of FOSS in social concerns as education, business and advocacy."

The Philippine Collegian, the university publication of the premiere state university, the University of the Philippines - Diliman Campus (UP Diliman), ran a feature on FOSS and the FOSS Act of 2010 also contributed by Mr. Dulce (you can find the story in the last page):

Phil Collegian issue 12 by ~Kule1011 on deviantART

CPU, the lead organizer, released a message of thanks and call to action to everyone who attended to use FOSS in helping improve lives in the entire Filipino community:

"The theme of this year's celebration, “Change is FOSSible!”, was a push to the right direction of what FOSS Advocacy should be. The efforts of different developers and users to empower citizen efforts such as the disaster management operations during the Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng and the electoral monitoring during the 2010 elections were exactly what the use of FOSS should be in practice: for if we remember Freedom 2 of the Free Software Definition, the freedom to spread FOSS is in order to help your neighbor."

The core organizers of Software Freedom Day Philippines 2010 looks forward to a bigger and better celebration next year, hoping to report good news of CPU and Bayan Muna's "FOSS on the GO!" campaign that aims to promote FOSS advocacy and muster support for the pushing of the FOSS Act of 2010. We hope everyone who participated will continue to actively support our quest for Free Software, for a Free Philippines!