Swathanthra malayalam Computing, the volunteer team working on Standardisation & Localisation of malayalam Computing decided to celebrate Software freedom day as an occasion to celebrate the Software freedom with Local Language computing. We also plan to showcase our achievements from SFD06 to SFD07.
Announcement: http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/SFD/SMC
Contact person: Anivar Aravind
Event Report
Swathanthra Malayalam Computing celebrated the Software Freedom Day 2007 as a state level function on 14th and 15th at Chamber of Commerce Hall, Thrissur, Kerala. Swathanthra Malayalam Computing (http://smc.org.in) is a A free software collective engaged in development, localization and popularization of various free software for Malayalam. The theme of this years celebration was "Free Softwares and Malayalam Computing". The celebration was a grant success and met our objective: making the common people familiarize with the Free Desktops & softwares in their language.
Two days before the programme, Malayalam print media gave a introduction to the programme to the people. It was a great news even outside Kerala that the venerable smiling "GNU" appeared in a local newspaper (http://www.fsdaily.com/Community/Smiling_GNU_on_your_local_newspaper/). An article appeared in the Janaugam Daily briefly explained the principles of free softwares and its importance in language computing, particularly to take up a culture to the digital age. This kind of support from print media helped us to attract more crowd than expected even when raining heavily outside
SFD 07 celebration of SMC is a two day event - September 14th and 15th. On 14th, by 3PM we started the programme. Famous Malayalam writer and activist K Venu inaugurated the celebrations. Hall was full with students from nearby collages, general public who are interested in Computing, & Language. Mr. K Venu talked about the importance of Free software for the self-existence in the field of technology. He emphasized the principles of knowledge sharing and the underlying principles of free softwares. He observed that the contributions by Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds would be the greatest contributions towards the digital future of the world. Dr. Mahesh Mangalat, an academic expert and editor of an online Malayalam Magzine, "Tharjjani" spoke about the importance of Free softwares for language computing. If technology reaches common man then only it becomes fruitful. For that it should be free and cheap. Free softwares can make this work and already Kerala has the educational framework of using Free softwares in all schools. M.P Surendran, Bureau Chief of Mathrubhumi Daily congratulated the efforts of SMC & Spoke about the need of free technology to revive the dying language. he said that Free software movement sets the infrastructure for digital future of local communities & their cultures. Speakers congratulated the efforts of Swathanthra Malayalam computing to make the Free softwares available to the common people.
SMC released the 7 Free software packages developed in SFD06-SFD07 period to the public. These softwares includes input methods, text to speech sytem, speech recognition system, spell checker, typing tutor, unicode fonts etc for malayalam. Releasing was done by respective developers. 4 projects were done as part of SMC-Google Summer of code 2007 project. SMC presented momento labled "GNU" in Malayalam to all students who successfully completed their GSOC projects. Developers shared their experiences on developing these packages. We wind up 14th programme by demonstrating a Malayalam version of the famous Matrix screensaver. Everybody enjoyed to see their own Malayalam letters showering in the black screen.
On 15th, the programme started at 11 AM by the Free software exhibition to the public. Hall was decorated with Software Freedom day balloons. Member of Kerala Legislative Assembly Mr. Rajaji Mathew Thomas inaugurated the exhibition. SMC volunteers demonstrated Free softwares in Malayalam to the public. We showed GNOME localized in Malayalam, and all the softwares we have developed so far to lift the language barrier to computer access for common people. We distributed all these software packages as a custom debian etch installable cd and ubuntu cds that softwarefreedomday.org sent to us. GNU stickers, GPLV3 button badges, SFD Logo sticker were also there. We took the participants details by a python program written on the spot by a student hacker ( he is well known in the community for his knoppix remastering skills and slynux distribution while he was studying in the 9th standard). Students from nearby colleges and schools showed great enthusiasm in demonstrating the softwares to the public. For many people who came to visit the program, the softwares which 'speek and understand' their language was a great surprise. No surprise, there were people who worked only with Windows. Our program was a great "WOW" to them. The enthusiasm shown by the student volunteers throughout the planning, conducting, concluding stages of programme gives us great hope for a an even better future for Free Software.
Along with the exhibition, we organized discussions on various topics related to Free software and Language computing. Anivar Aravind presented a session on History of Free Softwares for Malayalam Computing. Praveen A took a presentations on Unicode. Discussions held on the topic- SMC and ongoing atomic chillu encoding debate in the Unicode. On Afternoon, there was an amazing presentation by P.P.Ramachandran, (famous malayalam poet and editor of harithakam.com) on Hyper texts. This wonderful presentation crossed the boundaries of Literature & Software and focused on User-producer nature of content creation in the age of wikipedia & free software. On evening, the discussion topic was E-Malayalam. Famous Malayalam writer Mr M Mukundan( Secretary, Kerala Sahithya Academy), Dr. Mahesh Mangalat(Editor, Tharjani Online magazine), Deepak Sankaranarayanan(Developer and malayalam blogger), Civic Chandran(Activist & Editor of Padhabhedam magazine),Johny(publication manager, current books) , Benny (Webdunia multilingual portal) were particpated. There was a questions session to public. People asked interesting questions on free softwares and its usages. SMC members answered them. Programme was over by 6PM and we all scribbled on the balloon and the programme banner with our signatures.
Mainstream print media gave full support for our program. See http://www.fsdaily.com/Community/Wide_spread_coverage_for_Software_Freedom_Day_in_Mainstream_Print_Media/. All local news papers reported our program and Some of them wrote that it is is a stariting of Free Software revolution in Kerala. Snaps and reports appeared in blogs also.
Links
* Story of Free Software in Kerala - Software Freedom Day Celebrations by Pramod CE http://pramode-ce.livejournal.com/69450.html
* SMC-SFD07: Wide news coverage in malayalam dailies by Anivar Aravind http://anivar.movingrepublic.org/2007/smc-sfd07-wide-news-coverage-in-malayalam-dailies/
* Awesome Linguistic tools from SMC by Sarath Laxman http://sarathlakshman.info/?p=107
* Software freedom day :: A technical journey to Thrissur by Sarath Laxman http://sarathlakshman.info/?p=106
Photos
* http://picasaweb.google.com/santhosh00/SMCSFD07
* http://picasaweb.google.com/getbkb/Software_freedom_day_2007