Saturday 17th September - credativ employees were among the volunteers of Rugby Linux Users Group (LUG) who held an open day at The Benn Partnership Centre in Rugby to promote Free Software to the local community.

Software Freedom Day is celebrated in over 100 countries worldwide; Linux User Groups in cities all over the UK organise their own initiatives, but this is the first year that the Rugby LUG has held the event.

"The idea of Software Freedom Day is to educate the public about the many benefits of using high-quality, free open source software that is available. Many people may be using Free Software already, without even realising it." says Nick Morrott, from the group. "By increasing awareness of Free Software, our vision is to empower everybody to be able to freely connect, create and share in a digital world that is participatory, transparent, and sustainable."

At the free event, there were representatives from the Free and Open Source software community, as well as from local ICT companies who specialise in FOSS for the home, education and business.

A specialised session for members of the education sector took place prior to the main event, where they could discuss their needs on a one-to-one basis with the specialists.

Volunteers had set up a range of PCs, laptops and projectors so that visitors could experience first-hand the huge range of free software available. A wide range of software suitable for the home, education and business were on-hand, suitable for common tasks such as photo and video editing, multimedia, office and productivity, and games. Visitors could try out these free and open applications on both Microsoft and Linux platforms and benefit from informal and free advice, with the opportunity to arrange further follow-up sessions if required. Many took away information on the solutions as well as "Software Freedom Day" T-shirts, free CD's and memory sticks loaded with software.

The event was a great success, bringing in over 100 visitors, from individuals wanting to know how FOSS can be applied to their home computers, to representatives from larger organisations, charities and local government.

Rugby LUG hopes to organise a similar event next year. For more details, please see the group's website: http://www.rugby.lug.org.uk. or contact us at info@credativ.co.uk