Over 500 participants from 15 countries will join one of the Asia’s top events on free and open source software (FOSS) to be held in Ho Chi Minh City this Friday.

First held in China’s Beijing last year, the annual summit this year will be themed “Get freedom with GNOME” and held at the Quang Trung Software City in HCMC’s District 12.

Open source software is computer software that allows users to use, change and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified forms under a software license.

GNOME, meanwhile, is a prominent part of the free software and mass collaboration GNU project initiated in 1983 by Richard Stallman, an American software freedom activist and computer programmer. The project seeks to give users and developers the ultimate level of control over their desktops, software and data.

Further information about the GNOME.Asia 2009 summit can be found at http://www.gnome.asia.

Source: Thanh Nien