[nzlug] Software Freedom Day - registrations before next Wednesday for goodies!

[Craig Box]

NZOSS are proud to support Software Freedom Day
(http://softwarefreedomday.org/), happening this year on September 16.

Software Freedom Day is an initiative to make the world aware of the
existence, availability, and high quality of Free and Open Source Software
(FOSS), and to encourage its use by as many people as possible. It is a
global grassroots marketing campaign in which volunteers from around the
world are invited to participate.

>From their website:

  Software Freedom Day (SFD)  is a worldwide celebration  of Free  and Open 
  Source Software (FOSS).  Our goal  in this celebration  is to educate the 
  worldwide  public  about  the  benefits  of  using  high quality  FOSS in 
  education,  in government,  at home,  and in business -- in short, every-
  where!  The non-profit  company  Software Freedom International  provides 
  guidance in organizing SFD, but volunteer teams around the world organize
  their own SFD events to impact their own communities.

So far, there are SFD teams for 2006 registered in Christchurch, Wellington
and Hamilton.  We'd love to see groups take part in other regions.

All officially registered teams are send some swag to give away - you have
to registered before July 19 (one week today) to be guaranteed, and you're
also likely to be sent some Ubuntu CDs to give away.  So, talk to your LUG
or local interested parties, and see what you can do!

If you're interested in joining an existing team, check out the pages for
each region linked from http://softwarefreedomday.org/teams/oceania/nz/.
There are a bunch of ideas of what you can do on the SFD website at
http://softwarefreedomday.org/StartGuide.  To register a team, go to
http://softwarefreedomday.org/registration.


Software Freedom International are also running a competition for
individuals and SFD teams. Individuals have a chance to win a specially
signed tshirt and teams can win an awesome IBM System p5 server. 

A signed t-shirt is awarded to the best individual submissions for the
following categories:

* best event photo
* best localised version of the offical SFD logo. Some inspiration and
  examples are at http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/Artwork/Logo
* best global version of the offical SFD logo
* best SFD blog coverage
* highest ranking Government offical at SFD event (photo required) -
  Government official submissions determined to be at equal levels (e.g.,
  two country presidents) will be put into a hat and a winner will be drawn.
  The prize goes to the community individual who organised the official, not
  the official personally.

An IBM System p5 base level POWER5+ server will be awarded to the best team
submissions for each of the following categories:

* best SFD event publicity
* best SFD documentary
* best plan for FOSS deployment project on new server for community benefit
* second best plan for FOSS deployment project on new server for community
  benefit
* best SFD event

Read more about the competitions at
http://softwarefreedomday.org/Competition2006.


As user group co-ordinator for NZOSS, I look forward to building links
between groups in NZ.  I will be approaching the NZOSS council to see if we
can get any funding for groups to run SFD events - watch this space.


Regards
Craig