South Africa’s newest Linux distribution, Kongoni, is planning a major online and offline hackfest on October 3. Kongoni founder and lead developer, AJ Venter, says that the the purpose of the hackfest code sprint is “to modify the kongoni_current ports tree to be compatible with the new FHS-compliant slackware64 structures so that we can migrate to it as an upstream for kongoni Cicero”.

Kongoni is one of just nine totally free Linux distributions recognised by the Free Software Foundation.

Venter says that the code work “is quite simple and even beginner programmers can join in. We will explain everything that needs to be done in detail and senior developers will be ready to help out with any questions”.

All that hackfest-ers need is a running version of Kongoni Nietzsche (Live CD, virtual machine or a full install) and the Kongoni team will provide the rest. There will be both online and offline events throughout the day.

More details of the hackfest can be found on the Facebook group or on the Kongoni website.

Saturday was Software Freedom Day and around the country fans got together to celebrate and promote free software. In Pretoria the department of science and technology played host again to celebrations which included a bug jam, a distro love station, talks and exhibitions. Pictures of the day’s celebration can be found here. Also in Gauteng, free software fans made their way out to shopping centres to catch the Saturday trade and hand out copies of Linux and share their knowledge. In Cape Town the Cape Linux User Group got their hands dirty to perform maintenance on the UCT Freedom Toaster as well as enjoying some (free) beer (pictures)

This Saturday is Software Freedom Day and around the world free software advocates and fans will celebrate the ability to share software with each other. In South Africa there are a number of events planned for the day including a Cape Linux User Group event at UCT, an event in Pretoria at the department of science and technology as well as a series of other events around Gauteng. Andre Coetzee, spokesman of SA Linux, says a number of events are planned throughout the country, manned by teams of volunteers whose aim will be to promote open source software to the general public.

On Saturday the SA Linux teams will gather at Cresta Centre, Benoni Lakeside Mall and East Rand Mall to distribute copies of Ubuntu and educate the public on the benefits of free and open source software.

Full story on ITWeb

September 19 is Software Freedom Day, the day that free and open source fans celebrate their passion for free software. Across the globe, and across South Africa, FOSS advocates are planning day-long celebrations. In Cape Town the Cape Linux User Group (Clug) is planning a day of fixing up the UCT Freedom Toaster as well as having a party.

From the announcement:

Our plans are: Spend a day fixing up our Freedom Toaster and have a bit of a party. There are a whole pile of things that need to be done, so you don’t need any insane Linux-wrangling skills. We need people who can use power tools, people who can chat, and people who would like some help with some Linux problem, and people who’d like to develop front-end software for the toaster.

The aims of the day are:
* Have a party
* Replace the toaster extractor fan
* Replace the LCD
* Start writing some new software for it
* Re-install the software and horrible touch screen driver

For details of other Software Freedom Day celebrations across South Africa check out the Software Freedom Day wiki.

Free software needs you! This year’s Software Freedom Day celebrations will include a Code Jam aimed at getting more people contributing to free software. The Jam is an opportunity for everyone to contribute time, code, bug fixes or anything else to a selection of FOSS projects.

The exact structure of the event is still being finalised but contributions could be in one of many ways including implementing a new feature, fixing known bugs, testing for new bugs, triaging existing bugs or translating projects.

Organiser of the Code Jam, Walter Leibbrandt, has put out a call for suggestions of which projects should be worked on during the Jam. “Because of the sheer scope of possible contributions it is not easy to simply choose a project and a way in which to contribute to it. That’s where you come in! We would like know how and to which project(s) you would prefer to contribute,” says Leibbrandt.

Anyone wanting to be involved in the Code Jam – or make suggestions – can visit the SFD 2009 wiki and add their details there.

Software Freedom Day will be held on Saturday 19 September. The Pretoria staging of the celebrations, at which the Code Jam will take place, will be held at the Department of Science and Technology offices on the CSIR campus.

If you want to learn more about free and open source software (FOSS) then you might want to check out the Wits FOSS Awareness Day on Thursday 4 September. The event, which starts at 8am on the Wits University West Campus, will include presentations on the current state of FOSS in South Africa, the position of FOSS within the Wits University community and its role in the university’s Knowledge and Information Management systems (KIM).

While there are some sessions catering to Wits-specific interests, there will also be a number of demonstration sessions on FOSS desktop tools including those on Ubuntu, OpenOffice.org, The Gimp, Blender, Icecast and Audacity. Also of interest to the education community will be demonstrations on FOSS e-learning tools, including OpenOffice.org, Chisimba, podcasting and realtime class tutorials. The FOSS Awareness Day will be held in the FNB Auditorium and anyone who wants to attend can register on the KIM website.