"As a developing country, most individuals and even companies cannot afford such prices and resort to using illegal copies of software," the FOSS community said Thursday in a statement.
"Pirated software may cost only a fraction of the actual price but the implications can be far greater."
From June 26 to 28, the FOSS community is holding a training forum or "Foss-ed" on software that can be run on the Windows operating platform, which is the dominant operating system despite the rising use of open source platforms like Linux.
“We wanted to create awareness among the general public about FOSS applications that you can easily download and use while continuing to be on the Microsoft Windows Platform,” says Karthiga Ratnam, who heads the FOSS-ed for Windows program.
“There are so many good pieces of software which you don't have to pay any money for licensing fees. We hope that by learning about freely available alternatives out there we can help to stop software piracy in the country," she said.
While there is a trend in the industry moving towards GNU/Linux and Free and Open Source Software Microsoft Windows is still a dominating force.
Brian Behlendorf, an originator of the open source movement will be starting off the conference.
Behlendorf was a primary developer of the Apache Web server, the most popular web server software on the Internet, and a founding member of the Apache Group, which later became the Apache Software Foundation.
'FOSS-ed for Windows' will cover applications and solutions ranging from Web browsers and mail clients to graphics software and content management systems.
Related Link: Foss Community Website .
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