Software Freedom Day, Sept. 10, 2005. Coordinate or blab about your event(s) here

I'm a software guy, not a hardware guy. The mind leads and the body follows, in my humble opinion. With the tech world, the software represents the brains while the physical computer is more like the skin, bone and muscle. Our technology needs in the fast changing world are often met and best understood with software solutions.

The software decisions facing people, government, schools and businesses present an opportunity to choose among either "proprietary software" or "Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)."

My strong Information Technology stance is choose in favor of FOSS. When we choose to discover, investigate, install, deploy, network, promote and develop in the realm of open-source software efforts, we choose a kind of software that allows the users to view and adapt the source code and in turn, suit one's own needs. Open Source Software is real empowerment. And, it is a real community effort. In turn the public good is advanced.

A vast majority of Free and Open Source Software comes without charge, gratis. The open-source licenses put the utilities out and available or free, which means elininates software license fees. Open Source tools make technology accessible and affordable to small business, researchers, political activists and even those in Africa.

The high cost of proprietary software is responsible for higher incidence of software piracy, locally and globally. A Business Software Alliance put software piracy in Nigeria around 84 per cent. Hence, ligitimate business among computer vendors in Nigeria becomes problematic. Moves to Free and Open Source software and operating systems can be an avenue to make for legitimate business.

The celebration of Software Freedom Day (SFD) encourages grassroot efforts to promote alternative solutions. More especially, SFD celebrates the freedom, innovation and education FOSS presents to the global community.

Thousands of SFD teams are holding a range of events and celebrations for these concerns. Linux User Groups (LUGs), seminars, public square discussions, Linux road shows, confluence shows, sports, and music avenues are all part of the wide scope of activities.

Software Freedom Day (SFD) celebrations are slated for September 10, 2006.