WARNING

This page is not up to date, please google translate the macedonian version here: http://slobodensoftver.org.mk/za_sloboden_softver_makedonija

Note: This page contains some basic information about Free Software Macedonia in English. The full web site in Macedonian is available at http://www.slobodensoftver.org.mk/.

General Information

Free Software Macedonia is a non-profit organization that works with Free Software as in freedom in the Republic of Macedonia. Free Software Macedonia is dedicated to promotion of Free Software, creating awareness of both the economic and socio-ethical context of Free software especially for a developing country such as Macedonia.

Free Software Macedonia (Слободен софтвер Македонија, Sloboden softver Makedonija) was established in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia in 2002. It is the only NGO in the country that deals with the issues of Free Software. Also, Free Software Macedonia works on issues related to Open Standards and Free Culture. The work of the organization is governed by its constitution that is based on the template constitution provided by the European Free Software Foundation.

For more information on how to contact us, please see this.

Work

The activities of the NGO are divided into two different areas. The first area is covering Free Software on a technical, technological and logistic level, and the other is dealing with the policy, social and ethical issues concerning Free Software.

Since its conception Free Software Macedonia has been the principal organization responsible for localization of Free Software into Macedonian, including OpenOffice.org, Mozilla products as well as the GNOME and KDE desktop environments and other desktop applications. Also the GNU/Linux operating system has been adapted to be able to use the Macedonian Cyrillic alphabet, dates, calendars and currency. Several GNU/Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, Madriva have also been localized into Macedonian.

Most of the work that is being carried out on the translation and localization marathons is publicly promoted on events such as Software freedom day and annual installation festivals. Translation marathons are events where a lot of people are working on the localization of a single Free software application. Installation festival are events where new users usually bring their PCs to get help in installing GNU/Linux from experienced users. Some of the installation festivals that the NGO organized were accompanied by workshops and lectures about usage of Free software and its social benefits.

We participate in activities organized by other entities for which we have received an invitation:

• In 2007 we worked with UNDP Macedonia on their OLPC Project. We were responsible for upgrading the software on all of the XO laptops that we used in the selected primary schools;
• In 2006/2007 we worked on the project “Support to e-Governance initiatives based on Free/Open Source Software at the local level in FYR Macedonia” that was implemented by UNDP Macedonia;
• In 2006 we organized an international workshop on FLOSS usage in Government and Education in Macedonia;
• In 2005 we collaborated with the task force that prepared the e-Citizens pillar of the National Strategy for Information Society, a document later adopted by the Macedonian Parliament.

Collaboration with the Universities in Skopje and Bitola has been established in the form of lectures for the students of these public academic institutions. The students at the department of journalism and e-business in Skopje and at the Technical faculty in Bitola attend these annual lectures. The work in Bitola is done by a local GNU/Linux Users Group - Lugola.

Public awareness initiatives are also a big part of the work of the NGO. We've been caring out public initiatives concerning the possible negative implications of the strategic partnership agreement that the Government of R. of Macedonia singed with the Microsoft corporation. Also we monitor government activities in implementing e-government solutions by releasing software that is for obligatory use. The latest example was a software application from the Pension and Disabilities Insurance Fund that was against the recommendations made in the National Strategy for Information Society.

We achieved world fame with our Free Software Flood in 2004.

Our 2007 Software Freedom Day event held in Skopje was marked as a notable event by Software Freedom International.

Community

The whole community counts more than 200 mostly young people employed in leading Macedonian IT companies, University and High school students. They contribute their time and energy with great enthusiasm, doing most of the work pro bono.

The community can be reached on the mailing list [ossm-members] and on the IRC channel #lugola on irc.freenode.net.

Help Us

The easiest way to help us if you are outside Macedonia is to send us some books from the wish list we maintain. The books we have are available to anyone free of charge.

Another option is to send us money and if that is what you want to do please contact us. We will probably use the money to buy books.

If you have any other ideas, please don't hesitate to write us an e-mail.