Fórum Internacional Software Livre
Encyclopedia
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
. It takes place every year in Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre is the tenth most populous municipality in Brazil, with 1,409,939 inhabitants, and the centre of Brazil's fourth largest metropolitan area . It is also the capital city of the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city is the southernmost capital city of a Brazilian...
, the capital of Rio Grande Do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
, the most southern state of Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
.
The event is meant as a "get-together" of student
Student
A student is a learner, or someone who attends an educational institution. In some nations, the English term is reserved for those who attend university, while a schoolchild under the age of eighteen is called a pupil in English...
s, researcher
Researcher
A researcher is somebody who performs research, the search for knowledge or in general any systematic investigation to establish facts. Researchers can work in academic, industrial, government, or private institutions.-Examples of research institutions:...
s, social movements for freedom of information
Freedom of information
Freedom of information refers to the protection of the right to freedom of expression with regards to the Internet and information technology . Freedom of information may also concern censorship in an information technology context, i.e...
, entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
s, Information Technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
(IT) enterprises, governments, and other interested people.
Event history
On 30 July 1999, a group of public servants, professors, students and members of the academic community, members of user groups and other interested people, joined efforts to start the PSL-RS (Free Software Project of Rio Grande do Sul).The project's goals were:
- To set up a network of labs in companies and universities designated to the study of LinuxLinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
and other free software; - To build a consortium to publish books and manuals about Free Software, Free Programming languages and such;
- To massively promote free software.
After lots of difficulties and delays, the first FISL happened from 04-5 May 2000 in the Noble Hall of UFRGS (Rio Grande do Sul' Federal University). The event was attended by 2,120 people, which also had the first WSL (Free Software Workshop) with 19 works presented during the event.
Among others, the first FISL had such notable attendees as Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
, writer of the "GNU Manifesto" and Founder of the Free Software Foundation
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
.
As the event grew, more (knowledgeable) people started to hear about FISL.
And as a result of the word-spreading, more people came to Porto Alegre to attend the Forum.
Speakers
Among others, founders and important members of great Free Software projects that have spoken at FISL:- Ralf Nolden: Maintainer of KDE'sKDEKDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...
KdevelopKDevelopKDevelop is a free software integrated development environment for the KDE Platform on Unix-like computer operating systems. KDevelop includes no compiler. Instead, it uses an external compiler such as gcc to produce executable code....
IDEIntegrated development environmentAn integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development... - Amir TaakiAmir TaakiAmir Taaki is a British video game and computer software developer. Taaki is best known as the chairman of the Bitcoin Consultancy, as a Bitcoin project developer and for pioneering many open source projects.-Early years:...
: BitcoinBitcoinBitcoin is a decentralized, peer-to-peer network over which users make transactions that are tracked and verified through this network. The word Bitcoin also refers to the digital currency implemented as the currency medium for user transactions over this network...
developer and founder of Bitcoin Consultancy. - Jon "maddog" Hall: Executive Director of Linux International;
- Larry WallLarry WallLarry Wall is a programmer and author, most widely known for his creation of the Perl programming language in 1987.-Education:Wall earned his bachelor's degree from Seattle Pacific University in 1976....
: Creator of the PerlPerlPerl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
programming language; - Peter Salus: Author of "A Quarter Century of Unix" and "The Daemon, The Gnu and The Penguin"
- Rik van Riel: Linux kernel Developer
- Timothy Ney: GNOMEGNOMEGNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
Foundation Executive Director
The seventh Fórum Internacional Software Livre happened from the 19th to the 22nd of April. More than 5000 attendees registered attending.
The speakers included:
- Keith PackardKeith PackardKeith Packard is a software developer, best known for his work on the X Window System.Packard is responsible for many X extensions and technical papers on X...
- Miguel de IcazaMiguel de IcazaMiguel de Icaza is a Mexican free software programmer, best known for starting the GNOME and Mono projects.-Early years:Miguel de Icaza was born in Mexico City and studied at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México but never received a degree. He came from a family of scientists in which his...
- Marcelo TosattiMarcelo TosattiMarcelo Wormsbecker Tosatti is a Linux kernel developer.He became the maintainer of the stable 2.4 kernel series in November 2001 when he was 18 years old, replacing Alan Cox...
- Jim GettysJim GettysJim Gettys is an American computer programmer at Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, USA. Until January 2009, he was the Vice President of Software at the One Laptop per Child project, working on the software for the OLPC XO-1. He is one of the original developers of the X Window System at MIT and worked on...
- Jim McQuillan
- Richard StallmanRichard StallmanRichard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
- Georg Greve
- Aaron SeigoAaron SeigoAaron Joseph Seigo is a Canadian open source software developer who lives in Zürich, Switzerland. He has been a KDE contributor since KDE 2 alphas release in 2000....
- Zack Rusin
The 2nd international GPLv3 conference was held in conjunction with FISL on April 21 and 22.