Software Freedom Day

| free and open source

1. Why Sept. 10? What’s the significance of that date?

Hehe… well, that wss the day that Open Minds (now the Opensource
Technology Association of the Philippines) declared “war” on
Microsoft in a press conference back in 2002.

Note that the Software Freedom Day, worldwide, strongly discourages
bashing of any companies or individuals. Including Microsoft.

It’s not about war. It’s about freedom.

For consumers, it could be as simple as the freedom to take advantage
of freely-available quality software that they might not know about.
Tell your friends about Mozilla Firefox, GAIM, GIMP, and other neat
programs that run on even Microsoft Windows.

For students and hobbyists, it could be the freedom to participate in
world-wide projects and make a difference not only through code but
also through equally valuable efforts like art, translation, and
documentation.

For companies, it could be the freedom to deploy best-of-breed
solutions without having to allocate budget for yearly licensing.

This is your opportunity to show people what they can do. Listen to
their needs and help them find answers.

Most people don’t care about being anti-Microsoft. If people think
that the best arguments we can make for Free software is that it’s not
Microsoft and it doesn’t cost a thing, then we’re even further from
Freedom than we thought.

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