GOA, INDIA: Goa will celebrate Software Freedom Day (SFD) at BITS Pilani campus. The event, sponsored by Sun Microsystems, a leading supporter of free and open source software (FOSS), is open to all students in Goa with a valid college ID card.

The day will celebrate the philosophy of FOSS and will appreciate the hard work of all the developers around the world who collaborate to write open source software such as Linux and Mozilla Firefox. Free Software, as opposed to proprietary software, gives the user freedom to modify, enhance and redistribute the software.

This philosophy first came into light due to the efforts of such pioneers as Richard Stallman, founder, GNU project, who found it simply intolerable that a software company should hide the source code from the user, thereby stealing from them the power to improve/hack the system according to his own needs.

Various organizations and universities around the world are celebrating Software Freedom, and BITS Pilani, Goa Campus has taken the mantle to organize the event in Goa. The two day event shall comprise of a series of lectures by professionals. The main speakers at the event will be Frederick Noronha, head, Goa Linux Users' Group and member of the International Software Freedom Day Team, M. Sasikumar, developer, Bharat operating Systems Solutions, NRCFOSS and Ravikumar Aranke former Managing Director, RedHat.

To ensure that the event does not just cater to experienced people, non-technical events such as Quizzes and Gaming competition will be organized to broaden the group of people who are enthusiastic about Free Software. Another highlight of the event will be the install fest, where existing users will help novices in setting up a Linux/Solaris machine. The event promises to be a fun-filled experience with BITS Pilani and Sun Microsystems (the main sponsor of the event) ensuring that the student organizers put up a good show.