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Software Freedom Day was celebrated for the first time in the Vaal Triangle on Saturday 19 Sept 2009.
It was organised by the School of Information Technology from the Vaal Campus of the North-West University.
The event was held as a community project in the RiverSquare shopping centre in Three Rivers, Vereeniging.
Interested shoppers visited the exhibition and received computer discs containing Free and Open Source Software. It was a very popular attraction and more than 500 discs were given away.
Each disc contains:
1) A version of the Linux operating system with application software (2.3 GB in size)
2) 65 Programs of Free and Open Source software for the MS Windows operating system (totalling almost 2 GB)
3) Information about the BSc-IT and BSc-BMI degrees with photographs and a video clip of the NWU-Vaal campus.
Staff and students of the School of IT answered many questions from visitors. Some wanted to know more about computers and software. For example on how and why software can be free. Others had questions about the academic offerings at the NWU-Vaal. The following staff members of the School of IT organised and hosted the event: Mr. Petri Jooste, Mrs. Malie Zeeman, Mrs. Leonor Bosman, Mr. Charles van der Vyfer and Mr. Ernest Mathebula. Mr. Romeo Botes represented the students. The director of the School of IT, Prof. Philip Pretorius and the vice rector of the NWU-Vaal, Prof. Linda du Plessis also supported the event by visiting it and lending a hand where needed.
The differences between freeware, Free software, Open Source and proprietary software were discussed. Visitors also had the opportunity to try out some of the free software loaded on the 4 computers set up at the exhibition.
The children were especially interested in the games and edutainment software. Edutainment is the combination af education and entertainment where the software is designed to be engaging for young minds. One example is the educational suite GCompris which is also included on the discs that were handed out. It is available for Windows as well as the Linux operating system.
Mr. Jooste conducted a survey by asking members of the public what types of Software they use mostly and if they would prefer using the software with a translated interface if English was not their first language. Afrikaans-speaking people already enjoyed using Internet banking and the Facebook service in Afrikaans and indicated that they would like to see more support for Afrikaans in word processors and other software. Mr. Jooste is currently doing research about localised software. He said he expects the biggest advantage of having software translated into the mother tongue of users, to be in educational software aimed at children.
Visitors who indicated that they like Mathematics were encouraged by Mrs. Bosman to enrol for the degree BSc-BMI (Business Mathematics and Informatics) at the NWU-Vaal. There are excellent job oportunities for graduates of this program for example in the financial services sector of the economy.
High School children interested in a career in computing enquired about the BSc-IT degree. Mrs Zeeman explained to then the nature of the subjects in the BSc-IT and what knowledge and skills are used in programming and systems development. |
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