OpenCafe in the North West Gazette

Hi guys, Cristiaan from the local Herald has written a very informative article about the cafe and open source software in general. Click here to have a look!

An evening at the Innovation and Sustainability Awards

We have attended the gala dinner that was organized for all the finalists of this competition. We entered in the "Economic : ICT" category - and finished as one of the finalists - which is great - this is the first time we have entered a competition since our launch in October 2004 - and it is good to know that people already recognise the cafe's work.

"An alternative way of teaching the free software philosophy" - from silentcoder.co.za

AJ says : "I believe that if you can help a neighbour in need, you are morally bound to do so. With software 'can' is never a question. It doesn't cost you anything to make a copy, and send it to him - and you still have it. So you are morally bound to do so. In the post-scarcity world, charity becomes costless - so proprietory software twisted some laws completely beyond their intended purpose to create an artificial scarcity where none should exist.
They illegalized charity.
They made it criminal to be a good person." click here to read on....

Jargon's story about Software Freedom Day at the OpenCafe

We definitely had a great time on Saturday and did have very interesting discussions - click here to jump over to the Centauri site for an in-depth look at our SFD celebrations:-)

Software Freedom Day photos are online

We had lots of fun on Saturday - it was definitely worth all the effort!
Click here to see all the photos!

Introducing Jargon and the Alpha Centauri Network

Jargon appeared in the cafe a few months ago ( from Rustenburg ) and since then he has been one of the most enthusiastic supporter of our OpenCafe:-) Jargon, thanks for all the support - I still can't believe all the help you have been overwhelming us

Jargon has his own open source project & website called the Alpha Centauri Network. It focuses on providing support for installing and using Linux. Jargon & us are working on starting a new online forum for the OpenCafe.

The first Freeculture.org initiative in SA

The recently created Free Culture initiative is hosting events in Durban during Software Freedom Day.

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FreeCulture.org was founded in the USA by two Swarthmore students after they sued voting-machine manufacturer Diebold for abusing copyright law in 2003. Named after the book Free Culture by Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig, FreeCulture.org is part of a growing movement, with roots in the free software / open source community, media activists, creative artists and writers, and civil libertarians. Groups with which FreeCulture.org has collaborated include Creative Commons, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, and Downhill Battle.

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For more info on the Durban initiative contact Kofi Mangesi - 073 107 6600.

Introducing CC Mixter SA

ccMixterSA - our local music sharing portal - was launched on September 1 - as the South African version of ccMixter.org.

You can use ccMixter to upload and download loops and remix them with your own music. The loops on the site are freely available for everyone as they are published using a Creative Commons license.

Click here to see an animated movie about using Creative Commons Sampling licenses.

So don't waste time - create your own remix today!

About Wikipedia on ITWeb.co.za

"The Wikipedia, which has surged this year to become the most popular reference site on the Web, is fast overtaking several major news sites as the place where people swarm for context on breaking events."

Click here to read on ....

Free Culture South Africa Celebrates Software Freedom Day

Students of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) joined the Free Culture movement in South Africa to celebrate Software Freedom Day 2005. The day was marked with an exhibition and Talk, close to hundred students turned up for the event, of which only a quarter were women. The exhibition attracted Open Office.org Southern Africa, Computer Science Department of UKZN, and the local Free Culture chapter. Many Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) materials were distributed including Ubuntu Linux CDs, Open office.org CDs, Creative Commons badges and stickers and free culture flyers. A Freedom toaster donated by the Shuttleworth Foundation was also exhibited and many students had the opportunity to `toast' some CDs and to learn more about FOSS.

Speaking at the talk, Craig Adams South Africa representative for Open
Office.org, said, proprietary software was denying computer users their fundamental freedoms and that the right to choose is been compromised by proprietary software.

Luke Voster, the coordinator of the Open Source project in the university said, eight of the university's computer labs were currently running on Open Source software, he added that an integral part of the university's FOSS programme is to ensure that lecturers are trained in the use of FOSS to ensure that students assignments can be accepted in FOSS format.

Kofi Mangesi of the UKZN Chapter of Free Culture, commenting on the event said `we believe this event has sparked the beginning of serious discussions among students on the need for copyright reform in the digital age'.

Freedom Toaster for YFM

I just read the Creative Commons SA website that YFM is also getting a Freedom Toaster! That is really great news - freedom is soon becoming the norm - it looks like:-)

Our new multimedia room is almost complete

You will be able to use the new room for using programs like SKYPE, Audacity, CCMixter etc.

You can also watch films, jam along without disturbing the others in the cafe - isn't that great ! We'd like to focus on using this room for introducing the cafe's audience to Creative Commons content and tools - it's definitely not a super recording studio - but good enough for experimenting with audio and video content.

You can also sign up for free violin & guitar lessons from now on - all you need is to have your own instrument - the rest depends on how hard you are ready to work :-)

Software Freedom Day - less than 1 week to go ....

Well, we have been preparing for quite a while.

We are going to have a great time with watching Revolution OS ( once again ), watching the episodes of Go_open that we have missed, we will have some music as well.

This coming week we are spending with marketing all over town. If you are interested in helping us with the preparations - just pop in - we can use some additional help.