I ♥ Free Software Day & SUSE OSCC network
We got an email, a few weeks ago, that caught our attention. It came
with a donation explaining that it was made in the name of an employee
network at SUSE. We decided to investigate, asked the people
responsible, and today we want to share this awesome story with you.
(Note - this is also a great idea for an initiative to ask your company
about).
Several weeks ago, we received a really nice message:
I'm part of a special interest group / employee network at SUSE called the SUSE Open Source Community Citizens (OSCC). In the spirit of the "I Love Free Software Day", we asked our SUSE colleagues to share why they got into and love Free Software. Every story told was being rewarded with 50 EUR that is going to be donated to the Free Software Foundation Europe, to support any of the activities that you're doing.
Of course our curiosity was piqued: we wanted to see the messages that
they shared, to know a bit more about the SUSE OSCC group and this
initiative and to know why they chose us.
This is what we found:
On 14 February 2024, SUSE celebrated "I Love Free Software" day with its
employees around the world with a variety of activities. One of the
activities, organised by the SUSE employee volunteers of the Open Source
Community Citizens, was simple: tell us why you got into Free/Libre/Open
Source (FLOSS) Software and why you love it. Easy, right?
But that was not all! With the support of SUSE Cares, the SUSE Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) program, every story was worth $50! To donate to a
non-profit charity. And for this occasion OSCC chose the Free Software
Foundation Europe.
About 50 people participated sharing their 'I Love FS' messages, mainly
internally through the internal communications wall but also externally
on social media. In total, the amount of 2500EUR was reached, matching
the Silver Sponsorship level!.
“The employee network / special interest group that organized this
is focused on Open Source/Free Software and community activities. We
like and generally endorse many of the activities from FSFE and several
SUSE employees have been active in free software communities pretty much
since GPLv2 was released. I personally have a connection to that as
well”, explained Dirk Müller, one of the main organisers of this
activity and a member of the OSCC group.
Andy Fitzsimon, the sponsor of the employee network, said: “SUSE
is proud to support the Free Software Foundation Europe, championing the
ideals of free/libre software. Our donation reflects our commitment to
fostering a collaborative community where technology and innovation
benefit everyone.”
Although most of the reasons, often with personal messages that were
shared by the SUSE colleagues, were shared within SUSE, some were
posted on public social media. A few samples are below:
An awesome action, right? It really makes us happy to hear stories like these
about I Love Free Software celebrations! And even more, when the
initiative comes from the employees and the company supports them!
You can also help us by asking your employer to donate to the FSFE as
part of their corporate responsibility program.
Donate now
Footnotes
-
SUSE Cares is a corporate program at SUSE that focuses on
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and manages a budget for the
philanthropic giving program, which empowers our colleagues to
volunteer their time and direct corporate donations to non-profit
organizations that support any of SUSE’s chosen philanthropic goals
like Education and Digital Inclusion, Diversity and Equal
Opportunities or climate action.
Support FSFE