Freedom Toaster history

Originally stemming from a Shuttleworth Foundation initiative to provide an interactive display of open source software at the MTN Science Centre in Cape Town, the Freedom Toaster has today grown into a highly successful initiative that reaches across most of South Africa.

“Our initial invitation from the MTN Science Centre to do something open source orientated for them, was great opportunity for the Shuttleworth Foundation to showcase open source software in a public area" says Freedom Toaster founder Jason Hudson.

“All of the project members immediately set out to come up with the best way in which to utilize this opportunity."

“We agreed that we wanted something capable of increasing the public interest in and keenness for open source software" he explains. “One of the main ideas was to distribute software while simultaneously having a few computers set-up where people could test drive open source software. But none of these ideas were anything new or different" says Hudson.

It was then that he came up with the initial concept behind the Freedom Toaster. “I thought it would be cool to have a vending machine for open source software" he recalls. “I initially planned to have a conventional vending machine with open source CDs stocked inside it, with predetermined software on them."

This idea turned out not to be very viable in terms of the huge costs involved and Hudson set out to rethink his idea of an open source vending machine.

“We then decided to use a regular computer with 3 CD burning drives inside it" he explains. “We authored some clever software in the PERL programming language that would allow the computer to burn three CDs concurrently and we placed this computer in the MTN Science Centre."

What happened next illustrates how open source is driven by the community it both originates from and offers benefits to. “Members of the Cape Linux User Group (CLUG) got hold of the computer and the software we had written for it" explains Hudson.

“We started seeing discussions on the CLUG’s newsletters about it" he continues. “They were calling it an ‘open source kiosk’ and there was substantial community interest in what we had created."

This community of Linux and open source enthusiasts then set out to develop the concept into the final product that is the Freedom Toaster we know today.

“One member suggested the name ‘Freedom Toaster’" explains Hudson. “In Linux we speak of toasting CDs as opposed to burning them – which is a Windows term. Everybody approved of the name and it stuck."

The Shuttleworth Foundation compensated the community for their efforts and brought in professional designers and computer programmers to take care of the user interface and additional programming required.

“We decided to stock the Toaster with most popular Linux distributions and, more recently, added more depth to the amount of software and information available on the Freedom Toaster" says Hudson. “It now contains open source software for Windows as well and lots of other material, such as free electronic books from Gutenberg."

Development continues on the Freedom Toaster and Hudson plans to add more content to it in the future. “We’re planning to add content from Creative Commons to the Freedom Toaster - the rest is up to the community!" he concludes.