The First Freedomware Game Fest!

The Freedomware Game Fest is coming up! Its purpose is to promote gaming on non-proprietary software and on operating systems such as GNU/Linux, and *BSD.

It is a gaming tournament involving a number of great quality Freedomware Games such as Nexuiz, OpenArena, Tremulous, BZFlag, Battle for Wesnoth and Armagetron Advanced and perhaps even more, which through competitive matches celebrates the growing world of Freedomware Gaming, especially on platforms usually perceived as gaming deprived, like GNU/Linux. This deprivation is a MYTH! And this festival is here to prove it!

Freedomware crushes all borders, being truly cross platform and empowering.

What is Freedomware?

It is a nice new buzzword that refers to software and hardware that is free as in freedom to legally use, share, modify and copy as you wish. Freedomware games are therefore games that are not only free of charge, but free as in these freedoms, and hence usually cross platform, of great quality due to collaborative efforts and.. well.. as you will see in this tournament, very very fun! Sign up for the game fest now!

Whether you are going to be participating in this years Freedomware Game Fest or not show your support by adding a badge to your website or blog!

Linux Day 2007!

On September 17th 1991 Linus uploaded the Linux kernel 0.0.1 to the internet. Can you believe Tux is turning 16 this year!

To celebrate this momentous event I added my story to Tux's birthday card at linuxday.getnix.com.

linuxday.getnix.com was created by the Tux Project as a place where you can personally thank Linus and all of the Linux Kernel developers. You can also take the time to share with the world how and why you started using your GNU/Linux based OS.

On Monday September 17th I challenge you all to wear your Linux shirt or hand out a few Live CDs. Let's show the whole world that today is Linux Day!

The Tux Project

Introducing The Tux Project. It is a place where various creative and unique promotional campaigns will find life and active participants. This is a global GNU/Linux website! That is to say that it is not distro or DE specific. :)

To what end?
So that existing projects, businesses and anybody interested in being involved can participate as much as they want to without sacrificing their uniqueness. It is a promotional marketing cooperative for GNU/Linux as a whole.

How does it work?
When registering for a membership choose the working groups if any that you would like to be a part of. Once you sign in you will be able to share your GNU/Linux Promotional Ideas with the world. Others can get involved that are like minded and start refining the idea with you.

When you feel that you are gaining momentum you can request project leader status and create your own working group. This will allow you to have the tools at your groups disposal that will help you make your ideas reality. I grabbed the text from the FAQs at the new site. ;)

This is what we spent our holiday weekend doing. We had a blast putting this together.

If you have ever had an idea that you think would work really good or would like to share something that you do to promote GNU/Linux this is a great place to do so. I look forward to seeing you there and participating with you on your ideas and existing projects.

Tux500 is in the 91st Indy 500!

As some of you may know I love open collaborative efforts! I find that no matter what the project is when you put like minded people together you can end up with some new friends and sometimes some amazing stories to tell.

The Tux500 project has been yet another one of these amazing projects! No matter how you feel about the subject it has been wildly successful in terms of monopolizing on the larger media coverage provided for the Indy 500. Immediately after this footage appeared on television the number of Google searches for Linux skyrocketed!!!


There were some scary moments though. The original driver Stephan Gregoire was caught by a large gust of wind while qualifying for the main event! The back end of the car was whipped into the side of the race track Gregoire was amazingly able to control the slide and walked away from the accident. We later found out that he had fractured his spine and was not going to be able to drive the "The Blue Car" in the big race. It was amazing the out pouring of get well wishes that came pouring in. Get well soon Stephan. :) The whole project was on pins and needles. It was one of those moments where I felt like holding my breath. Stephan is going to be fine he is recovering and is not in too much pain. Mr Tom Chastain the car owner immediately started looking for a new driver. Stephan came through once again by personally recommending Roberto Mereno. What a recommendation that has turned out to be!

Robert and Tom decided to take a bit of a risk in order to ensure that the car would be in the main event. They removed the first qualifying speeds for the car and decided to requalify. 220 mph later we were in the # 11 slot for the 91st Indy 500!

The donations are going through the roof!!! We still have time to brand the side pods of the car. If you were waiting to see if the car would qualify for the race your wait is over!

I can not really explain how cool it has been to be part of this project. There has been so many doors opened by this project. It has really brought a lot of like minded people together. I am getting really excited to see what comes next!

VRRRRROOOOOOMMMMMMMM! VRRRRROOOOOOMMMMMMM!

Tux500.com

Landy(land0) and I have been working with the http://tux500.com project recently. We have been pitching in by setting up merchandise shops via the REVELinux Gear project. While we were setting up one of the new shops for them I realized that the REVELinux Gear project has been going since 2004! We started with a Cafepress shop in late 2004 then moved over to Spreadshirt in April of 2005 where we created two shops one for the EU and one for the US. The EU shop has sold a total of 239 items. The Us shop has come in second with 213 items. The thing that is so cool to me is that all of these items are being worn by people who love the various projects enough to represent them in their everyday life. (like Aseigo our most famous model) ;) It has been pretty exciting to contribute to and promote the F/OSS projects that we love. We really appreciate all the developers that make F/OSS what it is.

We had a rough few months this year and Landy just recently got back on his feet literally after a frightening experience that landed him in the hospital for a bit. But as he always likes to quote "I got better..." Landy is really looking forward to getting back involved with all of the projects that he has been contributing to. It has really been very refreshing to both of us to work with the tux500 team. They are all really great people who are like minded about promoting Linux. It reminded me of all of the wonderful people that I have had the joy of working with on various projects all around the globe.

Attention Art App Developers

If you are developer for a KDE art application please send me the RSS feeds for your official news and/or blogs. This way I can publish them on KDE-Artists.org.

Feel free to sign up for an account at KDE-Artists and use this site as a resource to promote your app. You can easily submit content that will be read by artists that could benefit from your application.

Artwork request

The artwork requests are starting to roll in at Open-Collab.org so break out your tablet and crankup your favorite graphics editor. This is a great way for all of the artists out there to contribute to the F/OSS community and have some fun. Anyone is welcome to get involved and it is very easy to participate, even if you are on a tight schedule. In no time at all you will be collaborating with many other F/OSS enthusiasts from around the world all with varying levels of involvement. It is also a great way to create because you are being challenged to make something somewhat specific that you might not ordinarily do and you will receive feedback, ratings and comments from F/OSS maintainers on your ideas and art that you submit. Many times others will build on your contribution which can turn into a very dynamic experience. This goes for other contributions requests and discussions taking place all over Open-Collab as well.

Here are just a few Project Pages and artwork requests you will find at Open-Collab.org.

One of the most recent project pages that has been added is for RSIBreak. RSIBreak is a great new application that prompts you to take a break from your computer now and then. The idea is to help prevent Repetitive Strain Disorder. The RSIBreak OC.o project page so far contains a Artwork Request Forum and an Example Images Gallery. What better way to add a little fun to the project than with a little Dragon Power! When you arrive at the RSIBReak OC.o project page you will find a Konqi-Blender lgpl source file originally created by Bastian Salmela (Basse). I was able to get a hold of Basse and he is also going to be providing an updated version of the blender file. The updated 3D model allows for better movements and even the ability to add facial expressions. Some of these new features were made possible by the work done on the Orange project. Basse also mentioned that he may have the time to make Konqi strike a few poses as well, that would be very cool to see. We also grabbed some existing images to use as illustrations from Workrave a GTK application that does something similar to RSIBreak.

Aktions has a project page on Open-Collab.org that is looking for artwork and some input from any body interested. Computers have become a major aspect of everyday life, creating a need for improved usage statistics. Aktions is a software development kit for KDE designed to gather this information. Our software helps developers understand how well their software meets user demand through an action-oriented perspective.

Tellico collection manager has a project page on Open-Collab.org and is in need of a updated logo.

getMyDistro a very cool project IMO is on its way to a finished logo.

OSS research project is in need of a logo.

Lobby4Linux in need of a new logo as well.

We are nearly out of the Beta stage and it is very exciting to see things starting to roll forward at Open-Collab.org.