1. Introduction to FOSS

• By: Ahmed Mekkawy AKA linuxawy [email_address]

2. What's SFD?

Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).

3. What will we talk about today

Brief history about Free Software movement.

4. Some Concepts 5. FOSS in the future 6. A strategic look 7. History of GNU

Richard Stallman (RMS)

8. A printer driver ?? 9. What's GNU? Gnu's Not Unix :) 10. A project to stop companies monopoly of our computers. 11. Linux

Linus Trovalds, the finnish guy.

12. Freax? No thanks, linux is better :) 13. Initially a terminal emulator, thena kernel. 14. Tux, the official mascot. 15. GNU/Linux evolution inthe first 8 years 16. Examples of FOSS

OS: GNU/Linux

17. Programming languages: C/C++, Ocaml, PHP, Python, Ruby, Lua, .. etc 18. Servers: Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, .. etc 19. End user applications: Firefox, OpenOffice.Org, VLC medial player, etc 20. FOSS is not only in Software

Wikipedia.org

21. OSWD.org (OpenSource Web Designs) 22. OpenCores.org (hardware) 23. Open Cola 24. Open Data ( scientific data) 25. ChemCollective.org 26. Quote

You cant better the world by simply talking to it. Philosophy to be effective must be mechanically applied.

• Buckminster Fuller

27. Some Concepts

Unix

28. BSD 29. GNU tools 30. Linux kernel 31. GNU/Linux 32. GNU OS (GNU/Hurd, Debian GNU/Hurd) 33. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD 34. Philosophy

Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer.

35. Open Source is a development methodology; Free Software is a social movement. 36. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ 37. 4 Freedoms

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

38. The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. 39. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). 40. The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. 41. Licensing

Copyleft.

42. GPL: grants the 4 freedoms, with other stuff too. 43. CreativeCommons: where GPL can't be used. 44. Others: BSD license, Apache license, etc. 45. GNU/Linux Distributions

It's an OS built based on Linux using GNU tools and lots of other FOSS projects.

46. Most famous ones currently are:

Debian

47. Ubuntu 48. RHEL (RedHat) / CentOS 49. Fedora Currently active arabic distro is Ojuba and Joatha, the discontinued ones are alot, though. 50. FOSS Community & LUG

If you didn't get it yet, free software can't be made with individuals, it needs a big community as it's based on code contributions.

51. Public recognition in such communities is a big motive for lots of people. 52. LUGs are local communities centered about FOSS, like EGLUG.org (Egypt GNU/Linux Users Group). 53. FOSS communitiesin the Egypt

Linux Egypt

54. EGLUG.org 55. LinuxAC.org 56. Ubuntu Egypt 57. OSUM 58. FSF arabia, will it happen someday? 59. Quote

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

• Buckminster Fuller

60. Future of FOSS

PCs:

GNU/Linux is gaining ground, rising quickly in usability in the last few years (which mainly was its drawback).

61. Companies jumped in (Google Chrome OS). Embedded systems:

Gaining ground as currently writing an OS especially for an embedded system is not worth it in most of cases, simply install linux in lots of current systems.

Mobile devices:

The next (or current?) hype for linux. Android is linux based. But Maemo/Meego is the really interesting thing: Linux+GNU+Debian stack+X+Gnome+QT

62. Quote

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.

• Mahatma Gandhi

63. A Strategic look

Our country is low on financial resources, which doesn't give us lots of fields to success at.

64. If we look at the software field without the FOSS, it's already dominated by big players. We can't compete with them cause we don't know the know-how of operating systems, database engines, .. etc. All we can do is some websites and somethings like that, but we can't touch the core technologies. 65. A Strategic look (Cont'd)

FOSS gives us the knowledge, and IT doesn't mainly rely on big finance.

66. If we tried to work with proprietary software, we will be salesmen for the big players (For example who creates a website using .net and SQL server, forces his client to buy these licenses). 67. The know-how gives us the ability to enhance the current solutions and even create our own. So we won't be limited to waiting for new releases of proprietary software. 68. We shouldn't be controlled by a certain company/entity. 69. What's in it for me?

End user: better and cheaper software.

70. Developer: very big learning resource, and technologies in continuous development. 71. An enterpruneur / business guy: dramatically lower costs, having better customization, more easy to create your own product or provide your services. 72. Bottom Line

You got freedoms, it's your right. Use them, and ask for them.

73. You can help, so please contribute. 74. Free Software is a social movement, it's an idea you can apply within your life outside the software prespective. 75. To know more

http://www.gnu.org

76. http://fsf.org 77. http://eglug.org 78. Revolution OS: the movie.