Freedom Toaster - Burn Free
Written by Matrich on 10th July, 2008
The determination and inventions of free and open source community are incredibly amazing and really shows the power of the open source philosophy and community. For instance, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) has a lot it can benefit third world countries especially cutting down on the licenses to paid for each application someone has to run and the limited-ness of closed software as it can be customized for individual use. Personally, I attended the Africa Source II workshop in Kalangala, Uganda where I met a lot of FOSS gurus and I was particularly impressed by how they are willing to make a difference in different communities and their attitude towards sharing information.
However, though Africa could benefit much from the FOSS community especially in terms of software, content, etc., it faces major challenges especially limited bandwidth to the internet which would help download this software and other open content.
Incredibly, the Shuttleworth Foundation founded by Mark Shutterworth (I also met him in the Africa Source II workshop) invented a Freedom Toaster. From the Freedom Toaster website:
The Freedom Toaster is a self-contained computer kiosk that allows anyone to burn open source software and operating systems onto blank CDs. It makes use of specialized software that allows users to burn multiple CDs at once; so one could, for example, burn the four CDs needed for a Mandriva Linux installation in the few minutes that would be required to burn one CD conventionally.
The user makes their selection on The Freedom Toaster’s touch-screen and then inserts the required amount of blank CDs to burn their selection.
With The Freedom Toaster, a lot of users especially here in Africa are saved from downloading a lot of Open Source Software and Applications including those running on Ms Windows; content, music, etc. all for free. All you need is to insert in blank CDs and then after a few minutes, you get your software available to you. These toasters are moved around to convenient places and events for people to toast any FOSS software and applications free of charge.
The Freedom Toaster project has also put up documents which could help anyone, anywhere build a freedom toaster of their own and also they will soon allow uploading information from users using USB slots.
I really think that this will help a lot here in Africa. Great thanks to the Shuttleworth Foundation and the Open Source Community at large. Though they are still very few and we hope to see more of them around Africa and the world at large.
So what do you think? Have you ever used this or have you seen them around? I think this idea can be borrowed by many organizations e.g. NGOs distributing content, etc.
You are currently browsing Matrich, an online portfolio, weblog and playground of Matovu Richard. Richard is a freelance website designer, developer and programmer based in Uganda. 
My business partner (who invented the Freedom Toaster within The Shuttleworth Foundation) and myself have actually been tasked by The Shuttleworth Foundation to develop Freedom Toasters commercially. We have been trading for a year and have a new hardware and software offering but now it can burn anything to CD, DVD or (NEW) USB and the end user gets anything and everything they need for FREE… Nice to see such enthusiasm for FOSS and Open content distribution. Please shout if you need further information.
Brett (Breadbin Interactive)
@Brett,
Thanks for taking time to come over here and it is great to hear that the invention is being taken to another level so that more FOSS and open content can be distributed all over especially in Africa.
Again thanks for steering such a wonderful invention. I wonder what it takes to get one and if you’ve got any strategy to try and get it in different countries? It would be great having some over here in Uganda.
I will also surely get in touch with you over email after talking to some organizations I think will be interested in them.