“They are not alone in their work for software freedom”
Every year on 14 February we celebrate “I Love Free Software Day”, thanking all
who contribute to Free Software. Without all of you we would not have such a great
ecosystem today! Our Polish group joined our celebrations on 2025 for the first time,
and we wanted to know more about them. So, we talked with Damian, our Poland group
coordinator, about the Polish groups’ commitment to Free Software.
The Polish country team of the FSFE, FSFE Poland has existed since 2018. For some time
there was a lull in the activities of the groups – but now they are back! Currently there
are three local groups, Warsaw, Poznań and Wrocław, which are some of the largest cities
in Poland. Together they do quite a lot and are actively organising events and campaigns.
For a good view of their activity you can of course join their
Matrix room (Polish only)
Together they decided to celebrate “I Love Free Software Day 2025”, taking this as the
perfect opportunity to restart FSFE Poland. They organised three events to which everyone
interested in Free Software was invited. Every event was visited by 20-30 people; there were
lots of fun, interesting conversations with a focus on lesser known software, and lots of pizza!
FSFE: Hello Damian, we are glad that you could take the time for this
interview. Can you tell us how many local groups there are in Poland? Can everybody who
is interested join them?
Damian Fajfer, Coordinator of FSFE Poland: The Polish volunteers happen to
be mostly from around Warsaw, Poznań and Wrocław so I would say there are three groups overall.
Of course anyone can join; these are not strict groups at all and have no membership formalities
whatsoever. If your goals align with ours and Free Software is important for you, we invite you to
participate in our Matrix rooms, especially if you would be willing to help with our projects and
activities.
FSFE: What did you do for I Love Free Software Day 2025?
Damian: This was our first time; we plan to celebrate the event each year.
But for the future in a more coordinated manner! For 2025, we managed to make a unified template
for all our local activities and helped each other organise the event in three cities: Wrocław,
Poznań and Warsaw.
Here you can find the
code of our website, published by Michał Korczak under the SIC license. The result was
meetings of about 20-30+ people in each location. We talked about Free Software projects with
emphasis on those that are hidden, lesser-known projects, but important for us for some
specific reason.
FSFE: Was there something you liked very much about the celebrations?
Damian: I feel like they helped us unify our standing a little bit.
People got to acknowledge that FSFE supports their work and – hopefully – that they are not
alone in their work for software freedom. I liked that we made a common template for the event
and that we translated Pretalx to Polish - huge kudos to Wiktor Przybylski,
Paweł "pomidor" Wiczyński, Kacper from Hackerspace Łódź and others for their excellent work.
FSFE: Why do you think I Love Free Software Day is important and
why should everybody be celebrating this day?
Damian: Because it raises awareness in the community about the importance of
Free Software. It also shows the importance of work done by volunteers who help with the
development of Free Software. “I Love Free Software Day” is one of the few opportunities to
meet in person, where Free Software is the leading conversation topic.
FSFE: What are the activities the local groups do and is there something
happening where new people are welcome to join and support the effort?
Damian: You could say that each FSFE group is loosely associated around a
Hackerspace, which provided a space to host the event in that city this year. People feeling
associated with the Free Software movement just naturally gravitate towards these places.
We are using Matrix channel as
the sole medium of communication and everyone interested in Free Software is encouraged to join.
I would say our main activities are promoting the Free Software movement by organising Free Software
events in Poland: “Sesja Linuksowa” (“Linux Session”),
“Poznańska Impreza Wolnego Oprogramowania”
(“Poznań Free Software Party”), “Jesień Linuxowa” (“Linux Autumn”) and many more.
The FSFE volunteers are, in varying proportions, organisers of these events and I think it is
now impossible to find a Free Software event without one of us being there. We are timidly trying
to get more seriously into translations and have started writing reports regarding Free Software
that I hope will appear by the end of the year.
FSFE: Was the celebration in 2025, the first time you celebrated
“I Love Free Software Day” and what motivated you to participate?
Damian: Actually, the first “I Love Free Software Day” event I organised was
in 2017 at Poznań University of Technology. I was a student and also the Free Software student
club president so it felt pretty natural at that time. I had already helped organising Poznańska
Impreza Wolnego Oprogramowania (“Poznań Free Software Party”) and Linux Presentation Days before. In 2016 I saw some FSFE stickers
on someone’s laptop and the person suggested that we could order stickers from the FSFE website for
our conference next time. I wanted to be part of the celebration because I loved the idea the first
time and the timing for the event is ideal for a Free Software event because nothing much happens
during the winter time.
FSFE: As a coordinator of the Poland group, you managed the communication for all
three local groups. How was this from your perspective as coordinator and are there some pitfalls you
can share with us that other country coordinators should watch out for?
Damian: I think I had a huge advantage already because I personally know people
from the other cities. I have studied in Poznań and the organisers are ex-members of the Free Software
student's club. Their friends and I met Michał from Wrocław during “Jesień Linuxowa” (“Linux Autumn”).
His being one of the main organisers behind “Sesja Linuxowa” (“Linux Session”) made him an ideal
candidate to organise a way smaller event like “I Love Free Software Day”.
In reality I did not have to coordinate much as I had very experienced organisers at hand that
I could rely on. If I were to give a piece of advice to people coordinating things on a country
level scale, it is that you need to find people with initiative and a sense of responsibility to
cooperate with. In any kind of relationship, input from both sides is required. I do not think it
would really work in other communities if I tried to force my way onto people that do not feel
comfortable in such a role.
FSFE: Do you already have plans for celebrating "I Love Free Software Day 2026"?
Damian: There is a LAN party culture that we inherited from previous organisers
of “Poznańska Impreza Wolnego Oprogramowania” (“Poznań Free Software Party”) that I really cherish.
I think it would be nice if the “I Love Free Software Day” had some LAN-Party-like online events
alongside (like those that these informal communities organise:
onFOSS and FOSSGralnia.
There we could promote and raise awareness about this kind of software. Besides, I do not know
if the theme is already announced but I hope everyone is aiming to affect more people, listen to
more talks and eat more pizza.
FSFE: That sounds like a great party! We cannot wait to see your event and we
will keep our community posted about this. Thank you for your time and your work for the
Free Software community!
You
can find more images in our gallery here!
Support FSFE
Anmelden
SUSE hat die allgemeine Verfügbarkeit von Linux Enterprise Server 16 (SLES 16) bekanntgegeben. Die neue Version setzt Maßstäbe für Enterprise Linux. Sie bietet eine stabile Grundlage für die IT der nächsten Dekade. Erstmals integriert SUSE ein Agentic-KI-Framework direkt in das Betriebssystem. Die Lösung soll Infrastrukturmanagement vereinfachen, Kosten senken und Prozesse beschleunigen. Administratoren profitieren von automatisierter […]
Red Hat hat einen neuen Service angekündigt: Red Hat Confirmed Sovereign Support. Er richtet sich an Unternehmen in allen 27 Mitgliedstaaten der EU. Ziel ist es digitale Souveränität zu fördern. Der Support wird ausschließlich von EU-Bürgern erbracht und lokal innerhalb der EU bereitgestellt. Das Unternehmen betont, dass echte digitale Souveränität nur mit Open Source möglich […]
Beim diesjährigen Ubuntu Summit in London zeigte sich, wie stark Canonical das Linux-Ökosystem weiterhin prägt. Mehrere Unternehmen stellten Projekte vor, die sich direkt auf Ubuntu stützen, oft verbunden mit der Integration von Snap-Paketen, die die Verteilung und Wartung von Anwendungen deutlich vereinfachen sollen. Damit festigt Ubuntu seine Rolle als zentrale Plattform im offenen Softwareumfeld. Ein […]
Das KDE-Projekt hat die Veröffentlichung von Plasma 6.5.2 bekannt gegeben. Es handelt sich um das zweite Wartungsupdate der aktuellen Version 6.5. Neue Funktionen gibt es diesmal keine, stattdessen konzentriert sich das Team auf Stabilität, Leistung und ein einheitliches Benutzererlebnis. Besonders der Fenstermanager KWin erhielt zahlreiche Verbesserungen. Ein Absturz, der Nutzer von FreeBSD betraf, wurde behoben. […]