Saturday, January 19, 2008

Richard Stallman event in SLIIT

Last week was very busy week organizing Richard Stallman event @ SLIIT. I never thought we could have Colombo's main event @ SLIIT, but many thanks to Dr. Shahani and Himira for giving us the event. We had to change the dates of the event due another event @ SLIIT on 17th, but finally it look like we pulled this off quit well. It was a massive crowed. I think largest crowed ever, for a FOSS event in Sri Lanka. It was a house full event. There was about more than 800 people in the auditorium few of them standing behind.


RMS came around 11.00, and our chairman Prof. Sam Karunaratne, Dr.Faiz Marikkar, other lectures and, some lectures from other universities waiting to welcome him.


His speech was one of best speeches I ever heard, even though I couldn't here it completely. Full with humours, widoms, and inspiration. He explains about, free software and, why it is important for the better society. Then he did St. IGNUcius (from church of EMACS) show. crowed loved it. He said "I Bless your computer my child". :-). RMS gave away some stickers to the audience @ the end of the event. He also gave, five batches for the organizing committee.
I got one as well. Ven. Metthavihari and Chamath managed to clear the ubuntu CD from the custom's which Canonical had couriered. They came before RMS finishes his speech. There were about 600 cds, but there were vanished within few seconds.

After his speech seems like most of our students who didn't admire Free Software, started admiring it. Funny things happen to me as well. I lost my phone, and found it. It was on the podium under the bag of RMS. Finally Many thanks to every one who helped to organize the event.

In the evening Me, Niroshan, Nidika and Udara event to UoC for the geekout, but came early since RMS had to leave early.

Friday, January 18, 2008

So......, it happens

Yeah, Richard Stallman came to SLIIT. we had a great event. and in the evening went to UCSC for the geek out ,but RMS has to go quickly. So we came early. I just came home from UCSC bit tired. I 'll promise you to put a blog entry on the event very soon.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Richard Stallman will be @ SLIIT


Richard Stallman one of the most influential person in the recent history, great philosopher and a hacker is now in Sri Lanka. He came to Sri Lanka yesterday(14th). And he will be coming to SLIIT( Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology) 18th of January. Here is you chance to see him live. and listen to him.
Come to Lalith Athulathmudali Auditorium, SLIIT Malabe on 18th January 10.00 AM.

Okey. Who is RMS ?

He is the founder of the Free Software Foundation. Founder of the GNU project . The author of the GNU Emacs text editor, gcc compliers, and GNU General Public License.

To find about more about RMS go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman

To Find out more about event go to; http://www.foss.lk

Free Software foundation web site : http://www.fsf.org/

Gnu Project : http://www.gnu.org

Above photo is taken from Wikipedia Website.