SANTA CLARA, USA:  Sun Microsystems Inc., has announced a global call to action for organizations and consumers to embrace open source software as part of its sponsorship of Software Freedom Day (SFD) on September 20, 2008. Sun is calling for community members and Sun employees across the world to participate in a global education program designed to improve awareness around the importance and benefits of open source technologies.

Software Freedom Day is an annual worldwide celebration of free and open source software and is designed to educate the public, to celebrate the virtues of open source software and encourage its use. Sun, an official sponsor of SFD 2008, is committed to open source communities and technologies and will be hosting more than 100 events around the globe at elite technical universities and educational institutions to equip students with free and open source technologies to aid their learning. Sun is encouraging its employees to support Software Freedom Day activities by running a series of global events  to raise awareness which include more than 130 university campuses and open source communities. Sun employees from 60 countries are expected to participate in SFD 2008.

News Image “Software Freedom is about creating a digital platform for trust and longevity, particularly in a future where more and more of our lives are dependent upon technology,” said Pia Waugh, president of Software Freedom International, the organization behind Software Freedom Day. “It is important we can participate in and trust the software we use and Software Freedom Day is designed to draw attention to the importance of open source technology. Through reaching a broad audience, we want to foster a general understanding of software freedom, and encourage adoption of free software and open standards. We appreciate the collaboration and support on this effort from leading visionary technology companies like Sun Microsystems.”

“Attitudes towards open source are maturing rapidly,” said Simon Phipps, chief open source officer, Sun Microsystems. “Software is no longer solely the domain of the developer. This is especially relevant in this 25th anniversary year of the GNU Project with more and more businesses moving away from proprietary technologies that deny them freedom and flexibility and introducing open source software into their organization. By sponsoring Software Freedom Day, Sun is helping new audiences across the globe embrace open source and recognize the impact that it can have in organizations of all sizes.”

Sun has made a huge commitment to open source software, contributing billions of dollars in developer time, sponsorships and donations, as well as releasing more code under open source licenses than any other organization in the public or private sector. Sun offers several platforms, including OpenSolaris, OpenJDK and OpenOffice.org that are supported by vibrant, growing communities, to help foster freedom, innovation and improve the quality of products for businesses. Sun will also be announcing the winners of its $1 Million Open Source Community Innovation Awards Program this month promoting the leading open source products, MySQL database and GlassFish application server.

Software Freedom Day was established in 2004 when 70 teams from across the globe participated. Since that time it has grown in popularity as more than 600 teams from over 80 countries plan to celebrate this year’s Software Freedom Day. Open source businesses, foundations and communities around the world will be encouraging their members to take part in the global education program around free software.