Software Freedom in Europe 2023
In 2023, Software Freedom has been back on stage, while we have boosted
our activities for the coming generations with our children's book and
the coding competition for young Europeans. We have also continued to
bring our demands to lawmakers, helped projects to become REUSE
compliant and we have shared many great moments with our community.
40 Years of Software Freedom! The 40th anniversary of the launch of the
GNU Project, which marked the beginning of the software
freedom movement, has led us to look back at all that we have achieved over
the past four decades, but also at the challenges that lie ahead in the
years to come.
Since the 1980s, technology has become an increasingly
important part of our lives: we use devices at home to make our daily
tasks easier, most of us use a laptop at work, we use technology in our
leisure time (playing, travelling...). And this year, Artificial
Intelligence has jumped in in a lot of our debates, as it has become a hot
topic in the public sphere.
Our movement has become global and broad encompassing
small local companies, large global corporations, civil society
organisations and thousands of professionals. We are all working
towards a world where the four freedoms are
guaranteed: users are free
to use software , to adapt it to their needs, and are able to understand
it, and to share it. These rights support other fundamental rights such as
freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and privacy.
However, just like 40 years ago, we still need trustworthy systems that put the end
user in control. Recent technological developments show that this
is more important than ever: in the era of the Artificial Intelligence
we need remember to put people's rights first. In a
world that communicates through social media, we need decentralised and
federated networks that are not controlled by an autocratic individual.
In a time in which we are surrounded by devices, we need not only to be
able to use them, but also to understand them and to improve them,
adapting them to our necessities and needs.
In this scenario, we need to empower new generations. They are the first
generation, many of whom have had 24/7 access to the internet, connected
devices and social media networks since birth. As a result, their
comfort level with technology is quite high. However, in order to build
a democratic, transparent and trustworthy society that relies more and
more on our technological developments, our children also need to
understand, tinker and experiment with technology.
The history of humanity has been written through creativity, diversity and collaboration.
Tinkering, first with our hands and now additionally with computer technology, has helped us
to evolve, to learn from our mistakes and from the experience and
knowledge of others. Let's give our current and future generations the
right to do the same. Let's give them the power to shape our
technology and make it their own. Why show them that there is only vanilla when we
have endless flavours?
Our Software Freedom in Europe 2023 report covers the FSFE's activities from
November 2022 to August 2023. We hope it gives you a better
understanding of our daily work and that you enjoy reading it!
Table of contents
- Ada & Zangemann: a story that travels the world
- Youth Hacking 4 Freedom: A coding competition
- Public Money, Public Code!: simple, right?
- Liability, Interoperability and Free Software in the EU
- Legal Support: helping projects and individuals
- REUSE: making licensing easier
- Legal Education Day 2022
- Legal support, research, innovation and standardization: participation in EU projects
- Legal Network and LLW 23
- TEDective: making European public procurement data explorable
- Device Neutrality: taking control of devices
- Router Freedom: a EU demand
- Upcycling Android: free your device and “become greener”
- Our work on public awareness
- I Love Free Software Day: Meet & Connect
- Software Freedom Podcast: giving a voice to our community
- Free Software and Federated social networks
- ‘What is Free Software’ Video
- Back to the stages, the booths, and “the hugs”!
- Join the movement
Ada & Zangemann: a story that travels the world
“I loved the book; I found the theme very important and
interesting, and the message delighted me (first the
resourcefulness of Ada, then the demonstration which unites the
whole city, and finally the Parliament which learns from its
mistakes). This book is exactly what I want to pass on to my
children!”
Canelle A., 18-year-old student translator in a Parisian high school
The illustrated book 'Ada
& Zangemann - A Tale of Software,
Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice Cream' by the FSFE, tells the story of
the famous inventor Zangemann and the girl Ada, a curious tinkerer. Ada
begins to experiment with hardware and software, and in the process
realises how crucial it is for her and others to control technology.
The book is currently available in German and now also
in English. However, thanks to many volunteers, Ada & Zangemann is also being translated into other
languages such as French, Italian, Danish or Valencian. These community
translations and and other resources can be
found in the book's git
repository.
"The youth at the Elizabeth Peabody House enjoyed the reading of
Ada & Zangemann. It was a fun and engaging read; vivid illustrations,
colors, and details on each page kept them excited for what came next.
The youth could relate to Ada, as they are full of great, creative
ideas; that they hope to bring to life too"
Matthew Caughey, Executive Director, The Elizabeth Peabody House
Over the past few months, the story of Ada & Zangemann has also been spread through readings. More
than 900 people have already attended in one of these events in
Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the USA. Started by the author, Matthias
Kirschner, the readings are currently being carried out by other
FSFE staff and volunteers! For example, Bonnie Mehring read it at
CCCamp, Dario Presutti read it in Italy to celebrate the Software Freedom Day
and the volunteer Isabel Dross-Fromm read it, with the help of her
child, at FrOSCon.
Ada also went overseas to LibrePlanet, the
FSF's annual conference, and we found out that she made it to
rural Rajasthan, and to a hospital school in the Middle East, where
impaired children from that region realised a small detail that most
readers may have missed: Ada
& Zangemann is also about inclusivity. In the book there is a
girl with a 3D printed leg. Did you notice
it?
"I read this book to my 6-year old child who was drawn by the beautiful illustrations and couldn’t
wait to hear the story. It’s been the start of a much-needed
conversation on out-of-the-box thinking, digital freedom, and
contesting power in the age of surveillance."
Claire Fernandez, Executive Director, European Digital Rights (EDRi)
Moreover Matthias Kirschner was invited to participate in different
podcasts, to talk about the book and Free Software:
Youth Hacking 4 Freedom: A coding competition
Two years ago the FSFE launched the first round of the Youth Hacking
4 Freedom (YH4F) coding contest. YH4F is an initiative aiming to raise
awareness for Free Software among the younger generation. The
competition encourages teenagers to tinker and experiment with
technology. It gives participants the opportunity to discuss and network
with important people in the field of computer science and Free
Software. The winners are rewarded with a trip to Brussels and a cash
prize, which could be an investment for their own project. Have a look
at Bonnie Mehring’s talk about the YH4F competition at the
Augsburger Linux-Infotag 2023 (in German).
After the successful conclusion of the first round in 2022, the FSFE
organised the second round, which launched at the beginning of this year.
First edition: The winners of the first edition had
the chance to spend a joyful time in Brussels, where the awards
ceremony took place. The weekend was summarised in a short video and this year we have published interviews with the
participants to learn
more about their backgrounds and the projects they developed.
Watch the video of the two day trip to Brussels where the winners
met, explored the city, and received their awards. For subtitles,
watch it in our
Peertube
instance
Second edition: the winners of the 2023 edition
were announced at the Awards Ceremony, held in Brussels in mid-October.
Over the coming months, we will be publishing interviews with
the participants about their projects. So stay tuned!
‘Public Money? Public Code!: simple, right?
Software made with public money should
be released as Free Software. Simple and clear, right? Over the past
few months, we have continued our activities to raise awareness of this
initiative and to explain why it is important.
Free Software in German municipalities: In January, we hosted an
online event on Free Software in Dortmund, Germany, with the
participation of the local government and more than 160 other community
representatives. Under the title "Municipalities need Free
Software"
the participants were informed about the developments leading to a
newly founded OSPO in Dortmund, about "Public Money? Public Code!",
Free Software as the key to digital sovereignty, and new perspectives
for municipalities that want to use Free Software. The event, that was
recorded, was organised in cooperation with Do-FOSS and OK.NRW.
As a result of the event, the FSFE invited all participants and others from
municipal administrations to join our new mailing list on Free
Software in German municipalities, which currently has more than 200
subscribers.
A German “Sovereign Workplace” for public
administrations: The current German government is working on a
sovereign workplace, a Free Software office and collaboration suite for
the public sector, as one of the projects to fulfil the goals of the
coalition agreement. However, a closer look at the project
raises
questions such as: Where is the source code? Who is responsible for it?
What happens to the public money involved? We asked the German Federal
Ministry of the Interior and Community (BMI) and publicly analysed the
answers, criticising the German state-owned enterprise Dataport for
open-washing its pseudo-sovereign product dPhoenixSuite.
If you are
interested in this topic, check out Johannes Näder's talk about it at
FrOSCon: “Free
Software for German administrations? Mysteries around
the Souvereign Workplace” (in German).
Midterm evaluation of the German government: In
addition, the FSFE, together with an alliance of civil society, scientific
institutions and the Free Software industry, published a call to the
German government to implement a sustainable digital
policy and to
provide the necessary funds in the federal budget. We draw a negative
mid-term balance for the digital policy of the German government and
demand a change towards Free Software and Public Money? Public
Code!
PMPC in Italy: Six Public Money, Public Code!
events were held in Italy, in six different cities: from the
extreme north to the extreme south: Trento, Bologna, Caltanissetta,
Milan, Bolzano, and Empoli. The events were run entirely by volunteers.
Public Awareness: In this context, we got an
article on Free
Software to control technology published (pages
11-12[18-21]) (pdf) in “Access OpenTech" for the CrossCulture Programme
(CCP) by ifa. You can also listen (in German) to Johannes Näder
explaining in the eGovernment-Podcast
our initiative Public Money?
Public Code! initiative and why Free Software is important for administrations and
their digital sovereignty. One episode of our Software Freedom Podcast also covers this topic with
Petter Joelson, the director of Digidem Lab, discussing citizen participation and the
Decidm tool.
Do not forget to support the Public Money, Public Code! initiative
by signing the Open
Letter, sharing your
picture on your social
networks and talking about to your local authorities.
Liability, Interoperability and Free Software in the EU
Political decisions and policies have a major impact on Free Software,
its ecosystems and its communities. The FSFE has long-standing
experience of working with policy makers and public bodies in Europe,
from local administrations to high level decision makers. The FSFE aims
to strength the rights of Free Software users and developers, and works
to abolish barriers to the adoption of Free Software.
In the coming months, we expect the following legislation to be adopted in the EU: Liability Act, AI Act, CRA and
Interoperability
Act.
Liability / AI Act: The EU is debating
the introduction of liability rules for software, including Free
Software. The relevant proposals are the AI Act, the Product Liability
Directive (PLD), and the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). As currently
proposed, all of these proposals would harm the Free Software ecosystem
and hence society and the economy. Therefore, we first
proposed changes to the AI Act to safeguard Free Software
developers, and also presented a similar position on the proposed
liability rules in the CRA and PLD during a hearing in the European
Parliament. In light of the CRA, we propose a solution that
will lead to more security while safeguarding the Free Software
ecosystem:
-
Liability should be shifted to those deploying Free Software instead
of those developing Free Software and
-
Those who significantly financially benefit from this deployment should
make sure the software becomes CE-compliant.
Interoperable Europe Act: With the
proposed Interoperable Europe Act, the EU aims to
create a dedicated legal framework for interoperability that will
enhance cross-border digital public services across the Union.
During the past year, the FSFE has been advocating for a more
inclusive governance structure in this legislation, where different
stakeholders, including the Free Software community, can be part of
the Interoperable Europe Board. A proper monitoring workflow and
evaluation process together with a dedicated budget are also part of our
demands.
The EU Parliament has followed some of our demands by taking a
step forward towards a more inclusive board while introducing
clearer indicators and statistics to monitor the progress of the
Act. On the other hand, the Council is moving in the opposite
direction by hindering the
inclusion of relevant stakeholders in the
governance structure. A final agreement between the three EU
institutions is expected to be reached by the end of this year, and the
FSFE calls on the European Parliament to maintain
its position and not allow any backsliding.
You can get a deeper understanding of the Interoperable European Act by
listening to Lina Ceballos explaining why Free Software should be
considered and safeguarded in such EU legislation in an episode of
our Software Freedom Podcast.
EU Declaration of Digital Rights: Member States, the
European Parliament and the Commission have
reached a consensus on the Declaration of Digital Rights and
Principles. Although it is intended to serve as a reference point
for Europe's digital transformation, it instead dives into murky
waters, causing ambiguity. Its wording is unclear and it overlooks
existing good proposals. The EU Parliament's proposal had a clear
reference to Free Software as a way to ensure transparency in the
use of algorithms and artificial intelligence, as well as the
importance of Open Standards. Unfortunately, this wording was not
retained during the inter-institutional negotiations, and the
final text ended up being rather unclear.
The FSFE has also been working on the protection of open standards.
While Alexander Sander participated as a panellist in the Open
Standards and Industrial Use of Open Source workshop, part of the
SWForum, a few months
ago we responded to the
EC Intellectual Property Consultation on a new framework for
standard-essential patents.
Furthermore, the FSFE’s co-founder and programmer Bernhard E. Reiter
explained why Free Software
supporters should join the protest against
the EU Chat control, that deprives citizens of the privacy of digital
correspondence. And related to AI, this year our volunteer Vincent
Lequertier published several interesting articles on
ethics, Free Software, and AI in Planet FSFE.
Legal Support: helping projects and individuals
At the Free Software Foundation Europe we help answer licensing questions, provide
technical support to make licensing easier (among others, with REUSE),
provide legal education materials on Free Software, such as the videos
from the Legal Education Day, and organise an annual conference for the
FSFE's legal network, the Free Software Legal and Licensing Workshop
(LLW). We are also part of several EU-funded projects, helping with
legal concepts and issues.
REUSE: making licensing easier
The FSFE's REUSE project aims to
make licensing easy for people and machines alike. It solves one of the
most common Free Software licensing problems: what kind of licence a
file is licensed under, and who owns the copyright. REUSE provides
simple recommendations in three steps to help users, developers, and
legal professionals.
In 2023 we release the REUSE tools 1.0 and are currently working on improving our RESUE 3.0 specification. This specification defines a
standardized method for declaring copyright and licensing for software
projects. The goal of the specification is to have unambiguous, human-
and machine-readable copyright and licensing information for each
individual file in a project. Ideally this information is embedded into
every file, so that the information is preserved when the file is
copied and reused by third parties.
Several projects have adopted REUSE, being GNU Health one of them. Since then,
users and re-users of GNU Health have been able to have a clear
overview of the copyright notices and licence terms thanks to the
standardised way of displaying them by following the REUSE
specification.
At the end of 2022, and during this present year, we have presented the REUSE
initiative at diverse conferences throughout Europe, such as SFSCON or
FOSDEM. Our talk at the Weizenbaum Conference 2022 “Practicing
Sovereignty – Interventions for Open Digital Futures” resulted
in an
academic article (page 66-71) (pdf) explaining how REUSE specifications
facilitate and improve management policies for the digital commons by
improving data and metadata communication for individuals, communities,
governments, and businesses.
Legal Education Day 2022
The FSFE organised a Legal
Education Day as part of the South Tyrol Free Software Conference
(SFSCON), which featured talks on legal topics relating to Free
Software, as well as a workshop to facilitate a better understanding of
these legal framework and compliances. Throughout the day, we explained
basic legal concepts such as copyright law, licensing, and their
practical applications into Free Software projects with the REUSE
specification.
As part of the conference, our talks at the Legal Education Day were
also filmed, and we have added these videos to our legal FAQs page, where you can
watch
them at your own pace or include them in other places.
Legal support, research, innovation and standardization: participation in EU projects
The ZOOOM Project: Since late 2022, the FSFE has been a
part of the ZOOOM Initiative, a project financed
by the European Commission. The primary goal of ZOOOM is to raise
awareness among the academic, business, industry, and innovation
communities of the importance of rights and obligations related to Free
Software, Open Data, and Open Hardware.
To accomplish this goal, the ZOOOM Initiative will develop a series
of reports, white papers, training materials, and web portals to
promote a solid understanding of licensing requirements and business
needs aiming to reach the three key groups of actors in innovation
ecosystems: namely knowledge generators, innovation support
organisations, and key stakeholders.
As one out of ten organisations comprising the consortium that makes
up the ZOOOM Initiative, the FSFE is responsible for the promotion of our
REUSE specification as well as producing
educational materials on the fundamental legal concepts of Free
Software and licensing.
Our work on ZOOOM has been progressing
well, and we have contributed with chapters to the various papers explaining
the basics of Free Software, including elementary Free Software legal
and licensing issues. In particular, we have also compiled a chapter on
Free Software licensing issues related specifically to Artificial
Intelligence (AI).
We will keep you updated on when we will publicly
share these materials as we are currently awaiting their final
publication, so stay tuned!
Next Generation Internet Zero: Since 2018, the FSFE has
been involved in the Next Generation
Internet Zero (NGI0) initiative as a consortium member. Funded by
the European Commission, the NGI0 initiative
hopes to support the
development of the internet into a platform that is
accessible and
diverse, and that respects fundamental rights, including values such as
privacy, which is also referred to as the Next Generation Internet. At
the FSFE, we believe that Free Software is key to accomplish this goal,
so that all users are able to use the internet as an effective tool to
achieve their full potential.
NGI0 projects provide financial grants and technical support to
researchers and developers who are working on Free Software solutions
that contribute to the establishment of the vision of the Next
Generation Internet.
After completing our previous
NGI0 projects in 2022, we have for the past year been working on our
current NGI0 projects: NGI0
Entrust, NGI0 Core, and NGI0 Review.
As we’ve always done with our previous NGI0 projects, we have been
assisting the software projects receiving grants from these various
NGI0 projects with their legal and licensing needs, as well as helping
them in their transitions when adopting our REUSE specification.
We continued our work with NGI0 this year by helping many developers
working on Free Software solutions solve a diverse range of problems,
as well as helping them have a better understanding of Free Software
licenses, compliance issues, and how they can avoid some of these
pitfalls by adopting our REUSE specification.
Legal Network and LLW 23
In 2023, the FSFE successfully organised our first Free Software Legal and Licensing Workshop (LLW) as
an in-person event again, after a 3-year hiatus due to the COVID-19
pandemic.
The LLW is organised every year by the FSFE to allow legal experts
in the FSFE’s Legal Network to
discuss legal issues and best practices surrounding Free Software
licenses. This event has become one of the foremost gathering of
lawyers, technologists, and thought leaders on Free Software legal and
licensing topics. This event is usually an important opportunity that
the FSFE provides to the legal community to share knowledge and updates
on the topics that they are working on, in order to foster a better
license compliance ecosystem by spreading best practices in the legal
sphere. Additionally, the LLW provides a forum for legal professionals
to better understand one another, which reduces overall friction in the
sector. This year’s LLW was held in April in Gothenburg, Sweden. Over
the course of three days, our 100 guests discussed software licensing
issues relating to AI, process issues in license curation at the Open
Source Initiative (OSI), and updates on legal cases involving Free
Software licenses.
The last weeks of 2022 also left us some good news! Copyleft-licensed
chess engine won legal case
against proprietary counterpart.
TEDective: making European public procurement data explorable
TEDective is making European public procurement
data explorable for non-experts. Using open data this Free Software
program empowers citizens by making EU tendering data accessible to
anyone who wants to consult and use it. For example, it will allow a
journalist to find out how much money the government spends on
Microsoft licenses and products, but also to compare that spending with
other regions in similar cases or even in comparison with other
countries.
‘TEDective’ won last year the
first prize in ‘transparency in public procurement’ challenge in the
EU Datathon.
Developed with the help of our volunteer Michael Weimann, and released as a
REUSE-compliant project under a Free Software (also known as Open
Source) license, TEDective improves access to the data published by
Tenders Electronic Daily (TED), by fulfilling all of the following
requirements for the provision of TED data: it is available free of
charge for both commercial and non-commercial use; it is
up-to-date (updated at least monthly), cleaned and both
buyers and suppliers are adequately deduplicated; and it can be
downloaded in bulk, making it available as an Open Contracting Data
Standard (OCDS) to enable interoperability. Besides, it will be
designed, developed, maintained and monitored transparently and in close
collaboration with all relevant stakeholders and user groups.
Over the next few months, we will be working to develop this tool further and we are
looking for contributors who would like to get involved or fund the project. Get in touch via
tedective@fsfe.org if you are interested!
Device Neutrality: taking control of devices
We started the Device Neutrality initiative to raise awareness about
the increasing loss of end-user control over technology. In our
increasingly technology-dependent societies, Device Neutrality aims to
put control back in the hands of end users, allowing them to bypass
gatekeepers and use Free Software on their devices in a
non-discriminatory way.
2022 ended with the important step of the adoption of the Digital
Markets Act by the European Parliament. This legislation introduces the
principle of Device Neutrality, although it does not set
open standards as the default for defining interoperability.
In 2023 we have continued our efforts to bring Device Neutrality into
the European legislation. We have also deepened this concept with in a
podcast episode and worked
on the creation of a dedicated landing page on
this topic, which will be online soon, and of course, we have continued to try to achieve Router
Freedom in Europe and with our Upcycling Android campaign.
Router Freedom: a EU demand
Router Freedom is the right of customers of an Internet
Service Provider (ISP) to choose and use a private router instead of a
router that the ISP forces them to use. But some Internet service
providers in Europe dishonour this principle by dictating which device
their customers have to use in order to connect to the Internet, or by
discriminating against the owners of alternative devices. This
undermining of our basic freedom of choice is strongly opposed by the
Free Software Foundation Europe and many other organisations, projects,
and individuals. Router
Freedom is not merely a topic for experts. It
affects us all.
Upcyling Android: free your device and “become greener”
“Upcycling Android" is the name of an initiative that the FSFE has
been running for the last few years and that was officially ended in March
2023. Launched in November 2021, Upcycling Android initiative helps people to flash
their phones with Free Software operating systems and promotes the
right for every user to install any software on any device. Moreover,
upcycling our devices is an important step to rethinking our short-term,
linear consumption of electronic devices in favour of a circular
economy.
The initiative held workshops, developed policy recommendations,
and received a lot of attention:
-
Workshops: A total of 12 workshops were
organised by the FSFE, consisting of a short introduction, a joint
flashing of phones with a question and answer session, followed by
individual flashing of phones, and ending with tips and tricks for
further using Free Software on mobile phones with F-Droid and
microG.
Some of the workshops were held at international
conferences (Bolzano), others in public spaces and libraries (Bonn,
Berlin), in a university environment (HAW Hamburg), in a local
hackerspace (Frankfurt, Berlin) or a repair café
(Korschenbroich-Herrenshoff), and even at the Federal Environment
Agency.
An online “Train the Trainers” workshop was
also held to teach people about how to organise their own workshops.
Information and background material: Throughout the
campaign, the FSFE has created various resources (posters, infographics,
stickers, flyers, brochures, video...), published under
Creative Commons licences and in digital form on the initiative's
website. Thus, even after the project has ended, this material can be
freely used by others who want to continue promoting the use of Free
Software, while overcoming software obsolescence and extending the life
of our hardware.
In addition, technical documentation, including
videos showing how to flash different terminals, has been created to
enable the workshops offered to be reproduced independently during and
after the end of the project.
-
Open Letter: to European Union legislators on "The
universal right to install any software on any device". As part of this
initiative, this Open Letter sets out four key demands to enable a more
sustainable use of electronic products and devices in the European
Union. It has already been signed by more than 150 civil society
organisations, many of them not previously involved in Free Software,
from different sectors, as well as more than 3000 individuals. In
particular, the signatory organisations ensure further virality of the
campaign within their own target groups.
-
Outreach: Throughout the initiative, outreach was
done through press releases, news articles, social media posts using
the hashtag #UpcyclingAndroid, podcasts and various presentations at
various international conferences. The materials we produced helped us
reach different audiences, and our volunteers and civil society
organisations also picked up on our messages. Thank you for spreading
the word.
The book ‘Shaping Digital Transformation
for a sustainable society’, published this year, is a collection of
28 papers from the second Bits & Trees conference on digitalisation
and sustainability. In a chapter entitled 'Making the telecom
sector more sustainable with Free Software', Lucas Lasota and Erik
Albers explain how Free Software is key to a more sustainable
telecom sector by giving end-users more control over devices,
especially with regard to artificial obsolescence of software and
hardware.
This initiative has officially ended, but there is still work to be
done. You can continue to demonstrate the benefits of unlocking your
devices by organising a workshop, signing the Open Letter... All the
documentation, information and materials are there. And remember, rooting your device
does not void its warranty.
Our work on public awareness
I Love Free Software Day: Meet & Connect
Once again, the FSFE has celebrated our devotion to Free Software on the
annual "I Love Free Software Day" on 14 February 2023.
This year, we celebrated it with Free Software enthusiasts through various events
across Europe (Berlin, Madrid, Thessaloniki,
Potteries, Zurich, Frankfurt, Barcelona, online in Italy). For the
first time, the FSFE's women's group participated by organising a meeting.
Besides the FSFE, many other organisations and individuals joined us to
publicly show their love for Free Software and their appreciation for
all
the wonderful contributors without whom Free Software would not be
possible. ❤️ Thank you!
Apart from all the events and activities on the day itself, we also have
new postcards and stickers. Many Free Software projects have
received a hand-written thank-you postcard, thanking them for their
continued and wonderful work for software freedom.
And we are already working on next years’ celebration so save the
date: 'I Love Free Software Day 2024: start software freedom' will take
place on 14 February 2024.
Software Freedom Podcast
The FSFE’s Software Freedom Podcast has continued throughout the year, with 6 new episodes.
This year, the podcast covered topics such as European politics,
Device Neutrality, the importance of Free Software in medical devices,
cryptography and privacy and Free Software in France.
Listen to all the Software Freedom Podcast episodes
Free Software and Federated social networks
The FSFE is active on Peertube and Mastodon. We created our own
Peertube instance, media.fsfe.org, to share our videos on a Free
Software platform and we currently have about 776 subscribers. Remember
to subscribe if you want to be informed about our latest videos.
Our presence on Mastodon has also grown, and we currently have more than
12,700 followers! It is also great to see how more and more people and
organisations are joining these and other decentralised social networks.
FediGov: The FSFE Swiss local group launched, with GNU/Linux.ch, an
initiative to encourage public institutions to use federated Free
Software solutions to communicate with their people. FediGov is the
name of this campaign, which also encourages people to ask their governments to adopt ethical communication.
Fediverse Education Day: The FSFE, the Centre for
Civic Education of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Adult
Education Centre Cologne organised a public symposium on the Fediverse,
its functionalities, its potentials and ways to use it for public
institutions and administrations. More than 70 guests attended the event
and we will publish the videos of the presentations soon.
‘What is Free Software’ Video
We continued to spread the word with our 'What is Free Software'
video. The video was released last year so we focused on spreading the
word about it and translating it into more languages. Thanks to
our translators and a fundraising campaign, we now have the video currently
in several European languages: Danish, Dutch, English, French, German,
Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish:
Watch and share our 'What is Free Software' video. In our
playlist
our Peertube channel you can find it in all the translated
languages:
Back to the stages, the booths, and “the hugs”!
The last few months of 2022 have brought us back to the stage after
years of online conferences. We couldn't be happier to see old friends
and meet new ones in person. Our team took part in a wide variety of
conferences, giving talks and running stands.
Our “season” started with SFSCON in Bolzano, where we enjoyed not
only a fruitful conference with our second Legal Education Day, the
first Italian community meeting, and many interesting talks, but also
some fun and networking time, such as our well-known Pizza Evening.
At the beginning of February, we travelled to Brussels for FOSDEM!
We were really pleased to see so many of you there! Our booth was really
busy with people wanting to know a bit more about us, participants who
heard our colleagues talked and wanted more information, and lots of
old friends just stopping by to say hello. Check out our talks at
FOSDEM 2023 and the videos from the Legal & Policy Devroom,
which we co-hosted together with Software Freedom Conservancy.
The spring found us attending foss-north, where we co-organised a track on
political, social, and legal issues around
Free Software
Map showing the different events that we have around Europe
None of these events would have been possible without the help of our
community! The backbone of the Free Software Foundation Europe's work is
its active network of Free Software advocates and volunteers who help
promote and spread the benefits of Free Software across Europe. Their
contribution and dedication allows us to continue our campaigns, lend a
hand to our team during our events, and help set up a booth.
Our local groups have been meeting throughout these months: some have
returned to face-to-face meetings, others have continued with online
meetings, and
others are mixing it up, and we even have new communication channels... Each
option is good to engage in fruitful discussions, to deepen some
concepts and ideas, to meet others with the same interests and even to
get active in developing new activities.
Our team of translators has done an extraordinary job. In the last
twelve months, we have added 340 new translations to
our website! And we have around 318 new pages in English!
This year we also started online coordinators' meetings. The aim of
these meetings is to discuss different topics with our coordinators and
to learn from each other's experiences. The meetings are also a tool to
network with coordinators from other countries.
But this year we also wanted to spend time with our volunteers in a more
relaxed environment and thank you in person for all your contributions.
The Linux Hotel hosted us for a summer meeting weekend where we shared
information about our current activities and campaigns, learned from the
experience and knowledge of our volunteers, and had a really good time!
As an e.V. association, the General Assembly of the
FSFE met for its annual meeting at the end of last October.
Join the movement
Become a supporter: Your support and contribution for the promotion of Free
Software are important for securing our continuous work, ensuring our
independence, strengthening our democratic society, promoting and
implementing concrete steps towards software freedom, and making it
easier to use and develop Free Software.
Advocating for freedom costs money and we depend on people like you to
support us. Thanks to all our supporters and special kudos to our donors. We guarantee that all support is used to foster software
freedom in Europe a little more each day, step by step, bit by bit for the next decades.
With your help we can keep on defending software freedom. Thank you for your trust, your support, and
your ideas to continue bringing Free Software to our society!
Support FSFE
Anmelden
