The University of the Philippines Linux Users’ Group celebrates Linux Day!

And by belated, this is a late post. Still, happy linux day to everyone! It does not have to be linux day for us to spread Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) awareness, and penguin love!

Last August 25 was Linux Day, and our organization spent the day handing out fliers and giving out linux cd’s. Throughout the day, we were able to give out 200+ cd’s, and twice as many fliers. And we thought we were going to have cds for dinner that day! Contrary to what we initially thought, the event turned out to be a huge success, spreading penguin fliers and cds, and more importantly, spreading FOSS awareness to students of our school.

I am a FOSS and Linux advocate. I consider FOSS and Linux as open-source alternatives to those proprietary software that we currently are used to. I am not into overthrowing proprietary software, and making people use Linux. I am rather, more into promotion and education of these open-source alternatives, making people know that there are these alternatives to the software they are currently using, and that these alternatives will not compromise what they are already used to, but rather will help in many ways in the long run.

I am currently using Fedora 15 (a Linux-based operating system), posting this through Firefox (an open-source browser), and I am still able to post to paolocadiz.com easily. I’m not using any code, or dealing with any other shenanigans to do what I usually do. And this is contrary to common belief that Linux operating systems are for coders/programmers/etc. It’s very similar actually.

The difference? You are contributing to the open coomunity by making use of these open-source software. The same way that the open community will be helping you out as you use these software.=)