Durban 2005
Free Culture South Africa Celebrates Software Freedom Day
Students of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) joined the Free Culture movement in South Africa to celebrate Software Freedom Day 2005. The day was marked with an exhibition and Talk, close to hundred students turned up for the event, of which only a quarter were women. The exhibition attracted Open Office.org Southern Africa, Computer Science Department of UKZN, and the local Free Culture chapter. Many Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) materials were distributed including Ubuntu Linux CDs, Open office.org CDs, Creative Commons badges and stickers and free culture flyers. A Freedom toaster donated by the Shuttleworth Foundation was also exhibited and many students had the opportunity to ‘toast’ some CDs and to learn more about FOSS.
Speaking at the talk, Craig Adams South Africa representative for Open Office.org, said, proprietary software was denying computer users their fundamental freedoms and that the right to choose is been compromised by proprietary software.
Luke Voster, the coordinator of the Open Source project in the university said, eight of the university’s computer labs were currently running on Open Source software, he added that an integral part of the university’s FOSS programme is to ensure that lecturers are trained in the use of FOSS to ensure that students assignments can be accepted in FOSS format.
Kofi Mangesi of the UKZN Chapter of Free Culture, commenting on the event said ‘we believe this event has sparked the beginning of serious discussions among students on the need for copyright reform in the digital age’.
The newly created FreeCulture.org group(an International Student movement advocating for copy rights reform) at the University of Kwazulu Natal will be holding an open day with guest presentations and a Poster exhibition of Open Source in South Africa.
The members of the team include:
Kofi Mangesi-UKZN Anisha Panchia-UKZN
Date: Friday 9th September
Time: 12:30pm- 13h30pm
Venue: Shepstone 10
Speakers: Craig Adams, OpenOffice.org Southern Africa and Luke Voster, Computer Science, UKZN
Exhibition: In front of Shepstone 1
Adresss Free Culture South Africa c/o School of Development Studies University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Howard College Campus Durban 4041 South Africa tel:+27 731076600
The Ubuntu Local Community and the Durban LUG, LEAD, will also be helping out at the UKZN Event. LEAD may also have an installfest on the day.
Craig Adams - Ubuntu LoCo Team Leader / OpenOffice.org / LEAD
Other Contacts
LEAD - [1] (http://www.lead.org.za/) OpenOffice.org Southern Africa - [2] (http://www.openoffice.org.za/) Ubuntu South Africa LoCo - [3] (http://www.ubuntu-za.org/) Retrieved from "http://maitri.ubuntu.com/softwarefreedomday/wiki/index.php/Durban"