Into the Digital Light

Doing a Free and Open Source presentation on Software Freedom Day could be a nightmare to some resource speakers.  It is similar to eating “Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans” in the Harry Potter series since you would never really know the composition of the audience till you get there. Last year I had to improvised since I believed that the presentation that I prepared was too complicated for the audience to take notice off. I ended up with a 40 minute presentation with one slide that only tells about the title of my topic and my name (well, actually two if you count the next slide that contains my email account so that they could add me to their Facebook account).

FOSS Appreciation Course Philippine Trade Training Center May 8, 2013 from gener morada

  "I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place." - Richard Stallman The other day I received an invitation from a friend who is also an advocate in the use of the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to be part of a team that would propose and implement a FOSS program for a private school in the province. He is in touch with the school's MIS head and they are trying to find alternatives on the use of their P4's and dual core computer systems that is running on a Window's XP operating system in their computer lab. This is every FOSS advocate's dream to be able to come up with a working FOSS program for implementation by a school and the challenge is how to make that dream into a reality.

I've been writing about Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) initiatives since 2006 when I was introduced to FOSS by my good friend Mr. Troy Lim who was also an internet cafe owner. At that time the initial crackdown on the use of pirated software in internet cafes led by the Pilipinas Anti-Piracy Team (PAPT) got under way. As a response, we in the Internet Cafe Association of Imus, Inc (ICAII), formed a technical team that studied the possib ility of the use of FOSS as a replacement to the proprietary software in internet cafes. My further development in understanding the philosphy of FOSS was through my participation in the various activities of the Computer's Professional Union, a computer professional group with a FOSS advocacy, and attending live-in training seminars in the Philippines conducted by the International Open Source Network (IOSN ASEAN+3) and InWent of Germany. My previous blog chronocaled the various activities in advocating for FOSS that I had pa...