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Open source: BVB College initiative to promote

Software is an inseparable part of every organization and plays a critical role in making them productive and efficient. Therefore organizations spend a large amount of money on software. However, many are unaware of a new wave sweeping across the world, the emergence of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Until a few years ago, FOSS were unable to compete with proprietary software in terms of features and ease of use. They were considered fit for use only by highly technical users. Times have changed and the time has come where quality and features in FOSS are able to compete with proprietary software.

Examples of FOSS replacements for proprietary software include OpenOffice, GIMP, Firefox, VLC Media Player, PDFCreator, 7Zip, Scilab, Eclipse. The number of successful FOSS in the category of software invisible to the end user is well known and widely accepted. Server software such as Apache web server, OpenLDAP authentication server, operating systems such as Linux and FreeBSD dominate the Internet, but have very low visibility.

The challenges facing people trying to increase use of FOSS are the lack of awareness, necessity to convince organizations to adopt FOSS and the need to train the end users. If these could be overcome, the benefits could be tremendous. Firstly, the spending on software would come down to zero. Secondly, it would increase interoperability because all FOSS use open technologies. Issues such as vendor lock-in and need to upgrade to new versions by paying hefty amounts would vanish.

Free and Open Source Software gives the freedom to the user of the software to make copies of the software, distribute it to others, improve it by adding features it doesn’t have and distribute the improved software to others. These are diametrically opposite to the philosophy of proprietary software which take away all the above freedoms. In fact, the “Free” in FOSS is about :Freedom: not cost.

Software Freedom Week (SFW) 2008 is a week long event (14th to 20th September 2008) organized to promote awareness about the benefits of Free and Open Source Software and to persuade organizations and individuals to use Free and Open Source Software. It also intends to offer support in installation and training for people and organizations who wish to embrace open source revolution. The event aims at replacement of illegal usage of proprietary software with powerful open source alternatives. The event will be arranged for government officials, NGOs and business community, academicians, students and school children.

B.V. Bhoomaraddi College of Engineering & Technology, Hubli celebrates software freedom week annually with the above mission. The Software Freedom International Board www.softwarefreedomday.org (Getting United Nations recognition for global open source promotion) encourages teams worldwide to organize such events and then rates the events. Last year BVB College SFW was a commended event. This year September 20th is globally celebrated as Software Freedom Day. We have scheduled the valedictory of SFW 08 to coincide with this day.

SFW 08 includes programs like Reach-out & open-desktop where student groups conduct mobile demonstrations at various schools, government organizations, and offices etc to create awareness. There is a workshop on open source technologies for Government, Non-Government, business and educational organizations. For students there is a north Karnataka level contest fest, which has competitions like OpenDebate, OpenTalk, Business model presentation, programming & debugging Quiz, and Gaming. There are workshops and talks from resource people on Java (opensource programming language) and Joomla (Web development software/content management system). There are attractive and grand prizes for the winners. Event website: www.bvbsfw.org .

The event is sponsored by SUN Microsystems, IBM India, Computer Shoppee Hubli and Sankalp Semiconductors Hubli.