This article is about writing a book with the help of the free software community. The book in question is Sakai Courseware Management with the main authors being Alan Berg (Me myself and I) and Michael Korcuska, the executive director of the Sakai Foundation.

Anna Morris is co-founder of FLOSSIE conference for women in Free Software, Manchester Fellowship Group Deputy Coordinator, and Co-Director of ethical-pets.co.uk. She is currently writing a book on video editing with Free Software, and volunteering with Document Freedom Day 2013 in her spare time.

She talks about running her e-commerce company with Free Software tools.

"I am a supporter and user of free software (though I admit I have not migrated entirely). I research and write about the social movement aspect of free software, and its potential as a model for alternative social organization beyond the realm of software development. I am inspired by the future envisioned by free software and take heart from its existence here and now.

There are several ways you can learn how to use the Linux command line. The way I took was the traditional one. I read the, ahem, fine manual, RTFM as we like to say, and I used the 'man' command a lot. That was well back before O'Reilly started publishing its great Unix and Linux technology books.

To me writing code is a means of Free Speech, and the Free Software movement is about preserving my rights of Free Speech in the face of the US patent system which is trying to cut down what I can say. Attacking the Oracle patent claims, and writing software to undermine their market position is the least I can do. If enough people think and do the same, I hope we can cause them trouble.

In the beginning, the idea that software should be free was deemed unrealistic and laughable, and then unworkable. Now, for the most part, it is deemed acceptable and desirable – not just as a workable approach to writing software, but as a means of writing better software.

Last week, I wrote about the problems of writing documentation for free software. This week, I'd like to write about the practical challenges -- specifically, what knowledge you need to write free software documentation, and the available sources of information.

Most of us still rely on CD/DVD writing software applications for file backup, data transfer and distribution, and for ripping audio and video content among other things.If you are using Linux, there are plenty of optical disc-authoring programs to choose from. Here are some of those that I like...

"...Free Software is really something to get excited about. Through the community created by GNU Generation, hopefully that excitement will persevere through the years to come. Unfortunately, it will take more than just a small little campaign to make this happen. It will take the cooperation of all Free Software users, developers, and advocates to really get the message across.