Group to start SMS campaign for open source bill
By Alexander Villafania
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 16:19:00 09/05/2008
Filed Under: mobile phones, Technology (general), Open source software, Software
MANILA, Philipines -- A group of computer professionals are starting a signature campaign through SMS to support the proposed House Bill 1716, or the Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) bill.
The campaign will be part of a school tour called Software Freedom Tour organized by the Computer Professionals Union (CPU). The group will conduct FOSS training for free to high school and college students
The tour will be tied to the local Software Freedom Day celebrations, which will run in parallel to the Software Freedom Day celebrations in other countries.
Regional events will be held in Baguio, Angeles City, Bicol, Cebu and in Isabela City. The event theme for this year is "One Nation: Unity for Software Freedom."
In an interview, CPU coordinator Rick Bahague said students who are supporting the FOSS bill can send a text message to a single number. The collected text messages will be collected and included in the group's manifesto, which would presented during the next hearing of the FOSS bill.
"We are coordinating with the office of [Bayan Muna Representative] Teddy Casino on this. We are also creating a primer on the bill as well," Bahague said.
Casino proposed the FOSS bill in 2006 but since then it has been passed to different congressional committees.
For the school tour, Bahague said they will be starting at the University of Makati and will move to University of the Philippines on September 17.
Training will be provided by CPU members and will cover the Ubuntu operating system, content management system applications, and Open Office desktop editing application.
Bahague explained that the training aims to give Filipinos cost-effective alternatives to proprietary software, as well as provide additional skills for IT students and developers.
Demand for open source developers has been increasing in the past few years, which prompted several organizations to offer open source application training to high school and college students.
The European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines has been conducting its POSITIVE (Philippine Open Source Initiative) program to strengthen the skills of high school students who are looking at IT careers.
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