Handout on Sri Lankan FOSS projects
Software Freedom Day
Software Freedom Day is a global, grassroots effort to educate the public about the virtues and availability of Free and Open Source Software. Local teams from all over the world are organizing events on 16 September 2006.
Free & Opensource software
Free Software is a matter of liberty, Not price It is a mater of the users freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to:
- The Freedom to run the program for any purpose.
- The Freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs.
- The Freedom to redistribute copies so that you can help your neighbor.
- The Freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
Apache Axis2- The Next Generation Web Services Stack
Apache is the most popular web server on the Internet, with about 70% of the market share. So when ever you visit a web site, chances are that it is being served using the Open Source Apache software.
Apart from the US and Europe, Sri Lanka is considered to have the third largest contributor community consisting of programmers, project managers and members. Sri Lanka is in the forefront when it comes to the Apache web services project, which is considered as the best FOSS implementation. The Web Services (WS) area is one of the hottest technologies today, and it is great to see that Sri Lankan FOSS developers are at the forefront of it.
On an interesting note, many of the underlying technologies have been given Sri Lankan names such as:
- Sandesha2 - Web Services Reliable Messaging
- Kandula2-WS – Co-ordination, Atomic Transaction and Business Activity
- Apache Neethi - WS Policy support
- Apache Rahas - WS Secure Conversation support
- Apache Savan - A Publisher/ subscriber implementation.
Get Involved! Get More Resources From...
Apache Axis2's official site: http://ws.apache.org/axis2/ WSO2 Oxygen Tank: http://www.wso2.net/projects/axis2
KBFX, The alternative to the Start Menu
The KBFX project is a completely skinnable menu replacement for one of the popular Linux desktops called KDE. It was started Siraj Razick, a Kandy resident developer. Siraj has managed to collaborate with other programmers around the world to create the KBFX menu. It can be described as a tactical evolution of the start menu found on so many other OSs.
Check out this cool eye candy at
The Sahana Free & Open Source Disaster Management Project
Launched in the immediate aftermath of the Asian Tsunami of December 2004, the Sahana project was used by the government to help manage the crisis. Subsequently, the Sahana project was rewritten to better accommodate a broader range of disaster situations. As a result, Sahana allows users to deploy the program rapidly during the our of need.
This inspired Richard Stallman, who is considered as the father of Free Software, to create a new award for Free & Open Source software developed for Social Benefit.
Some uses of Sahana include:
- Deployed officially in Sri Lanka for Asian Tsunami, 2005 (CNO)
- Deployed officially in Pakistan for Asian Quake, 2005 (NADRA)
- Deployed officially in Philippines for Mudslide Disaster, 2006
- Being deployed in Sri Lanka's largest NGO, Sarvodaya's Disaster unit, 2006
For more info
සිංහල (Sinhala) GNU/Linux: Empowering local language users in Sri Lanka
The goal of the සිංහල (Sinhala) GNU/Linux project is to enable the usage of the Sinhala language in the majority of existing GNU/Linux applications. Hence, we can use applications that have already been created, in Sinhala, e.g.
* Chat in Sinhala on Yahoo Instant Messenger using Gaim * Send and receive emails in Sinhala using Evolution or Thunderbird * Browse websites containing Sinhala using Firefox * Write Sinhala in documents & presentations using Open Office.
This is made possible because of the freedom provided by the GNU/Linux system to the users. By combining the freely available source code of the GNU/Linux system with the open Unicode Sinhala standard, we as Sri Lankans, are able to take control of how we use a computer and in what language.
How can you contribute to the සිංහල (Sinhala) GNU/Linux project?
You can contribute by simply using and testing the software. In five easy steps you can have Sinhala support enabled on Debian Etch and Ubuntu Dapper, the instructions are available on this web page:
http://sinhala.linux.lk/enabling-sinhala
Screenshots: 
Taprobane GNU/Linux distribution
Taprobane is a convenient GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian. It is a live CD, which means that you can run GNU/Linux directly from the CD, without having to install it on your hard drive. However it can be installed on your hard drive, if you wish.
Saegiri, is the name of the build system that is used for creating the Taprobane CD image (ISO). It can also be used to create custom Live CD distributions.
Besides making it easy to build custom GNU/Linux live CDs, another main goal is to try to minimize the number of steps (clicks or commands) required to perform typical day-to-day tasks. Taprobane GNU/Linux integrates many of the work done for the Sinhala GNU/Linux project and therefor has a working implementation out of the box.
For more info: http://www.taprobane.org