Software Freedom Day

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Software Freedom Day logo SFDLogo.svg
Software Freedom Day logo
Software Freedom Day 2018 seminar at Budi Luhur University, Jakarta, Indonesia Budi Luhur University Software Freedom Day 2018 UI and UX seminar.jpg
Software Freedom Day 2018 seminar at Budi Luhur University, Jakarta, Indonesia

Software Freedom Day (SFD) is an annual worldwide celebration of Free Software organized by the Digital Freedom Foundation (DFF). SFD is a public education effort with the aim of increasing awareness of Free Software and its virtues, and encouraging its use.

Contents

SFD was established in 2004 and was first observed on 28 August of that year. About 12 teams participated in the first Software Freedom Day. Since that time it has grown in popularity and while organisers anticipated more than 1,000 teams in 2010 [1] the event has stalled at around 400+ locations over the past two years, representing a 30% decrease over 2009.

Since 2006, Software Freedom Day has been held on the third Saturday of September. In 2025, this event will be held on the 20th of September.

Students lined up to register at the Software Freedom Day 2011 event in the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines Wikimedia Philippines at the Software Freedom Day 2011.jpg
Students lined up to register at the Software Freedom Day 2011 event in the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines

Organization

Each event is left to local teams around the world to organize. Pre-registered teams (2 months before the date or earlier) receive free schwag sent by DFF to help with the events themselves. The SFD wiki contains individual team pages describing their plans as well as helpful information to get them up to speed. Events themselves vary between conferences explaining the virtues of Free and Open Source Software, to workshops, demonstrations, games, planting tree ceremonies, discussions and InstallFests. [2]

Professor Rodrigo Gaston Manresa conference at the Software Freedom Day 2016 event in the Superior Institute of General Manuel Belgrano 6001, Salta, Argentina SFDProfesorManresa.jpg
Professor Rodrigo Gastón Manresa conference at the Software Freedom Day 2016 event in the Superior Institute of General Manuel Belgrano 6001, Salta, Argentina

Past events

TimeTeamsCountriesSource
28 August 200412N/A linux.com Archived 30 July 2013 at the Wayback Machine
10 September 200513660 linux.com Archived 30 July 2013 at the Wayback Machine SFD 2005 map Archived 21 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine
16 September 200618070 SFD 2006 map Archived 21 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine
15 September 200728680 SFD 2007 map Archived 21 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine
20 September 200856390 SFD 2008 map Archived 21 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine
19 September 200970090 SFD 2009 map Archived 21 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine
18 September 201039790 SFD 2010 map Archived 19 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine
17 September 201144287 SFD 2011 map Archived 28 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine
15 September 201230173 SFD 2012 map Archived 16 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine
21 September 201331681 SFD 2013 map Archived 18 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine
20 September 201419759 SFD 2014 map Archived 27 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine
19 September 201514147 SFD 2015 map Archived 21 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine
17 September 201612851 SFD 2016 map
16 September 20178844 SFD 2017 map Archived 26 September 2019 at the Wayback Machine
15 September 20187137 SFD 2018 map Archived 23 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine
21 September 20195936 SFD 2019 map Archived 21 September 2022 at the Wayback Machine
19 September 202018 [3] 18 SFD 2020 wiki Archived 22 September 2022 at the Wayback Machine
18 September 202160 [4] 28 SFD 2021 wiki Archived 21 September 2022 at the Wayback Machine
17 September 202243 [5] 20 SFD 2022 wiki Archived 22 September 2022 at the Wayback Machine
16 September 202349 [6] 30 SFD 2023 wiki Archived 1 October 2023 at the Wayback Machine
21 September 20246628 Digital Freedom Foundation Blog event overview

Note on the figures above: it is difficult to find figures of the early years. The maps on the SFD website are only reliable after 2007, however some years such as 2009 saw extra teams from two different sources which did not "officially" register with DFF. There was about 80 teams from China and a hundred from the Sun community (OSUM) who heavily subsidized goodies for their teams. [7] In the early year of SFD the map was an optional component not connected with the registration script and therefore some teams did not go through the troubles of adding themselves.

Sponsors

In the past, the event has been sponsored by entities like Canonical Ltd., IBM, Sun Microsystems, DKUUG, Google, Red Hat, Linode, Nokia and MakerBot Industries.

This event also has the long term support of Earth Cause, Linode, Mailman, FSF, FSFE, Joomla, Creative Commons, Admin Magazine, Linux Journal, Ubuntu User and Woman Tech. [8]

Each local team can seek sponsors independently, especially local FOSS supporting organizations, and often appears in local medias such as newspapers and TV. [9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Fred Muller's blog Archived 26 September 2019 at the Wayback Machine (President of Software Freedom International)
  2. ↑ "SFD Startup Guide (What should we do)". Archived from the original on 13 September 2012. Retrieved 8 September 2010.
  3. ↑ "SFD 2020 Teams". Archived from the original on 17 January 2021. Retrieved 2 January 2022.
  4. ↑ "SFD 2021 Teams".[ permanent dead link ]
  5. ↑ "SFD 2022 Teams". Archived from the original on 29 June 2022. Retrieved 17 September 2022.
  6. ↑ "SFD 2023 Teams".[ permanent dead link ]
  7. ↑ "Mirrored SUN PR announcement". Archived from the original on 26 September 2019. Retrieved 14 May 2012.
  8. ↑ "Digital Freedom Foundation - Home". Archived from the original on 10 February 2013. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
  9. ↑ Press coverage Archived 18 September 2010 at the Wayback Machine
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