Indymedia lab (Launch report)

Launch report, 27th March 2004: programme | workshops | indymedia lab | film room | ideas | feedback | media | finance | summing up

= Indymedia lab =

Online Collaboration
There was a real-time online link up with the http://wtfcon.org/ "What's the Future"  event in London. Logs and transcripts of the link up are here: http://irclogs.espnow.net/esp/2004.03.27.log

Software tools
You have a choice in what your computer runs. You can either propogate the hegemony of monopolistic proprietry large capitalist concerns or you can choose software tools that open, interoperable, freely distributable and modifiable.

Demonstrations of several different open software tools were given including

Linux
Linux together with GNU tools - see http://www.gnu.org/ - is offers a superior set of software tools for activists than other proprietry systems. Members of slugbug http://www.slugbug.org.uk/ demonstrated working Linux installations.

Linux Terminal Services Project
This offers a way of extending the useful life of old computers, thus minimising the environmental effects of new PCs, and equiping small organisations for whom the costs of new PCs are excessive. See http://www.ltsp.org/ for more details.

Open Office
http://www.openoffice.org/ Open Office offers a desktop productivity application suite that is compatible with most other office suites, yet is unecumbered by restrictive licenses. It will run on a variety of different computer platforms, including Windows, Apple Macintosh, and Linux. This allows organisations an easy migration path to Linux.

Gimp
http://www.gimp.org The Gnu Image Manipulation Project. This is a high quality image manipulation program, suitable for producing graphics for the web and for print. It runs on Windows, Apple Macintosh, and Linux, as well as other operating systems

Links
http://www.slugbug.org.uk http://udoo.org http://wtfcon.org http://recyclopedia.info http://www.burngreave.net http://www.indymedia.org.uk