I love FS celebrations +++ FOSDEM 2024 +++ SFP episode

Our March newsletter is here! Last month took us to FOSDEM, while ‘I Love Free Software Day’ was celebrated all over Europe. We also launched a new SFP episode on the state of Free Software and a discussion on banking and Software Freedom. Check out some interesting reading and event recommendations!

• FOSDEM was a blast!
• Thanks to all who made I Love Free Software Day 2024 a great success!
• SFP: The status of Free Software with Karen Sandler and Alexander Sander
• Software Freedom in banking
• About Device Neutrality, DMA and software licensing
• Join our next events!
• Take action: spread the word about FediGov!
• #Quote of the month
• Contribute to our Newsletter

FOSDEM was a blast!

At the beginning of February, FSFE volunteers and staffers went back to Brussels to take part in FOSDEM 2024 with a booth and talks. While for some of us this has become an awesome yearly experience, it was the first time for others. We asked one of our interns to share his thoughts about his first time there, but we also collected the recordings of the talks and devrooms we were involved with.

Find out more!

Thanks to all who made I Love Free Software Day 2024 a great success!

Together with hundreds of people and several organisations, we have celebrated another “I Love Free Software Day” on 14 February! On this day, we reached out to Free Software contributors to say “Thank you!” To all who joined us this time: Thank you for participating in this 14th edition of the “I Love Free Software Day” ❤️❤️❤️!

Read the report!

SFP: The status of Free Software with Karen Sandler and Alexander Sander

Have there been any changes for Free Software in Europe or the USA in the last year? How is Free Software viewed by legislators? What can we do to Support Software Freedom? Karen Sandler and Alexander Sander are active in the Free Software movement and share their views on the current status of Free Software in our society.

Listen to it now!

Software Freedom in banking

Are you forced to use proprietary applications when dealing with your bank? What is the relationship between banking applications and Free Software? Our staff member Florian Snow has been researching this topic and found that banks are pushing the development and use of proprietary applications for two-factor authentification. In doing so, they are restricting users' freedom to choose a one-time password generator of their choice.

Read more and take part in the discussion on the mailing list and on the fediverse!

About Device Neutrality, the DMA, and software licensing

In recent years, the FSFE team has been working for Device Neutrality, promoting ways to re-empower users to control their devices by running Free Software on them. With the upcoming entrance into force of the latest EU legislation on this area – the Digital Markets Act – policy makers are interested in the strategies adopted by large tech corporations (gatekeepers) to comply with the DMA. The FSFE was contacted by the Headquarters for Digital Market Competition of Japan (HDMC) regarding Apple’s strategy to comply with the DMA and its impact on Free Software. Our staff prepared a study in collaboration with F-Droid. You can read the report here (PDF).

In regard to the DMA, we also recommend reading a paper that our Legal Programme Manager, Lucas Lasota, has published linking the DMA, Free Software, and freedom of terminal equipment. This study puts into perspective the role Free Software has in facilitating the process of achieving fairness and contestability of digital markets. As a case study, this article presents the recent regulatory developments involving routers and modems in the EU, and the interaction telecom operators’ monopolistic practices have with Free Software.

Last but not least, the FSFE has also provided an in-depth analysis of the compliance workflow adopted for the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative. The study analyzes the compliance issues software projects may face during their implementation of Free Software licenses. This article concludes with the lessons learned from the experience gathered in the three years of implementation of the compliance workflow established for the NGI initiative, and especially notes how REUSE plays a game-changing role in this context.

Please share these publications to strengthen our efforts towards Software Freedom!

Join our next events!

For first time, we are participating in the Circonomia Festival in Fano (PU), Italy. There, we will be hosting, from 8 to 10 March, a workshop on decentralized and sustainable networks and Free Software, and a reading of the book “Ada & Zangemann” in Italian. You are welcome to join us any of the three days! Find out more in the event page.

A weekend later, on 16 and 17 March, you can meet as in the Chemnitzer Linux Days! One more year we are attending this long-standing event for education about Linux and Free Software. We will be present with an information booth, and on Saturday, the FSFE’s Policy Project Manager, Johannes Näder, will present Youth Hacking 4 Freedom, the Free Software competition for young people aged 14-18, currently in its third edition.

And if you are in Utrecht that Saturday, on 16 March, stop by at our info booth at the national Dutch Linux Users Group (NLLGG) meeting!

Remember that you can find all the information about our events at events.fsfe.org.

Take action: spread the word about FediGov!

FediGov is an initiative by the FSFE Swiss local group, together with GNU/Linux.ch, which aims to raise awareness among public institutions to use federated Free Software solutions to communicate with the public.

This campaign encourages individuals to ask their governments to adopt federated and decentralized communications by explaining to their local authorities the importance of sovereign communications in the public sector.

You can help by spreading the word at the local level, but also by contributing to the website with translations or improvements! Take action!

Quote of the month

I think the best thing about YH4F is that it promotes Free Software alternatives to people who haven’t had the chance to realize the benefits of such projects. I use Free Software pretty frequently, especially when it comes to operating systems.

Alexia, Youth Hacking 4 Freedom 2022 participant

Contribute to our Newsletter

We would love to hear from you. If you have any thoughts, pictures, or news to share, please send them to us at newsletter@fsfe.org. You can also support us, contribute to our work, and join our community. We would like to thank our community and all the volunteers, supporters, and donors who make our work possible, with a special mention to our translators who make it possible for you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.

Your editors, Ana and Tommi

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FOSDEM 2024 was a blast!

At the beginning of February, FSFE volunteers and staffers went back to Brussels to take part in FOSDEM 2024 with a booth and talks. While for some of us this has become an awesome yearly experience, it was the first time for others. Thanks to everyone who came to FOSDEM, visited our booth for a nice chat, and joined us during our social events!

For many members of our community, FOSDEM marks the beginning of the annual Free Software conferences. It is also one of the largest conferences on Software Freedom, so as a Free Software enthusiast it is one of the places to be.

While most of our staff and volunteers have marked the first weekend of February in their calendars for years, some FSFE members attended for the first time. We asked one of them, Tommi, a Free Software enthusiast and FSFE intern, about his first FOSDEM experience.

“When I was asked to go to FOSDEM, my answer was of course! So, a couple of weeks ago, I caught a train to Brussels and took part in the first FOSDEM of my life. It won’t be the last one.

It is hard to explain how incredible an experience it was to attend the conference. What struck me the most was to finally give a face and an identity to usernames contributing to Free Software. Up to FOSDEM, I personally met only a few people directly involved in the universe of open technologies that I have been following in the past few years. FOSDEM gave me the opportunity to finally have a face-to-face conversation with a lot of developers and members of the Free Software community, and I expressed my gratitude to them.

Both by standing at our booth and by wandering around, I could not help but feel surrounded by like-minded people who believe in the importance of Software Freedom, and more broadly in technology developed by the people for the people. I chatted face-to-face with developers and maintainers of projects whose existence literally changed my life, and all this happened in a self-organized and volunteer-led environment, making it even more interesting and captivating. Of course, there was also time to attend really interesting talks, and I had the chance to listen to my colleagues in front of an audience. It was also great to have the chance to meet a lot of FSFE volunteers and engage in interesting discussions with them during our social events.”

For this year, we had a booth at FOSDEM with promotion material and merchandising. Thanks to everyone who gave us a hand there!

If you missed FOSDEM or didn’t have time to attend all of our sessions, don’t worry! Have a look at the devrooms we co-organized this year and took part in, so that you can learn something new, deepen your knowledge, and improve your Free Software skills.

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"I Love Free Software Day" 2024: Forging the future with Free Software

Together with hundreds of people and several organisations, we have celebrated another "I Love Free Software Day" on 14 February! On this day, we reached out to Free Software contributors to say Thank you! To all who joined us this time: Thank you for participating in this 14th edition of the "I Love Free Software Day" ❤️❤️❤️!

The "I Love Free Software Day" 2024 focused on younger generations and how to introduce them into the Free Software community. Therefore, several of our local groups celebrated this day with a meeting focused on younger people. The rest just focused on the main "I Love Free Software Day" idea: to acknowledge the amazing Free Software community, thanking Free Software projects and sharing their love for Free Software. And while several FSFE local groups - in Italy, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, England, Germany, and Switzerland - got together and celebrated their love for software freedom in person, we were happy to see how other other members of the Free Software community joined our call and organised meetings, like the one in Portugal.

I Love Free Software Day celebrations 2024

For this year the FSFE planned a special gift for several organisations and long-term volunteers to get them ready for 'I Love Free Software' day. We gave them an acrylglas heart and an LED strip, plus a microcontroller and some jump wires. The challenge? To tinker around with these things and to upload a picture of the heart on 14 February. It turned out to be quite a challenge, but a lot of fun!

For the celebrations in 2024, over a hundred people came together in 13 local meetings organised by either FSFE local groups or other Free Software groups in seven different countries. The celebrations were as different as the groups. The local group in Aarhus, Denmark, organised a reading of the children's book "Ada & Zangemann", while the Portuguese organisation esop organised a translation of this book into Portuguese.

There are many more thank you messages and blogposts out there highlighting the work of Free Software contributors. It is touching to see so many people, companies, and organisations joining us for this special day and reaching out to the people who work for software freedom. For a longer read we recommend the full "I Love Free Software Day: Forging the future" report.

Thank you for joining this year's “I Love Free Software” celebrations ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

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SFP#24: The status of Free Software with Karen Sandler and Alexander Sander

Have there been any changes for Free Software in Europe or the USA in the last year? How is Free Software viewed by legislators? What can we do to support software freedom? Karen Sandler and Alexander Sander are active in the Free Software movement and share their views on the current status of Free Software in our society.

Karen Sandler is the executive director of the Software Freedom Conservancy and has a background in law and engineering. Our second guest for this episode is the FSFE's Senior Policy Consultant, Alexander Sander. In his work, Alex focuses on policy topics, always raising the status of Free Software within Europe. Over the past year, he has met with many decision-makers in Europe such as Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) or officials from the European Commission and Council, to talk about Free Software, for example in relation to the AI Act, the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), or the Product Liability Directive (PLD).

At the same time, across the ocean, the Software Freedom Conservancy has been working with a broad alliance to advocate for the right to repair.

In short a lot has happened in the past year. Luckily, Alex and Karen are here to talk with our host Bonnie about the current situation and what we still need to do for software freedom. Learn more about the state of Free Software with Alex and Karen and find out how you can support software freedom.

This is the perfect episode for everybody who needs a quick summary of the past year. Let's start software freedom!

Show notes

https://pics.fsfe.org/uploads/small/13/04/1eca3b91f7d5d338f8f2c6876d6c.png
• Software Freedom Conservancy
• "Amicus curiae brief": SFC joins amicus curiae in Green v. Department of Justice
• Use the source
• Software Freedom Conservancy Podcast with Karen Sandler
• Liability, Interoperability and Free Software in EU: what we are expecting
• EU Declaration of Digital Rights and Principles falls short of its ambitions
• "Public Money? Public Code!"
• "Public Money? Public Code!": contact your local public bodies
• FSFE's activities and how you can join our work for software freedom
• FOSDEM Legal and Policy Issues devroom
• Valetudo: liberate your vacuum robot
• Dédalo: Managing Cultural Heritage Archives
• Mujer y memoria

If you liked this episode and want to support our continuous work for software freedom, please help us with a donation.

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Celebrate I Love Free Software Day +++ Interoperable Europe Act adopted

Once again, FOSDEM did not disappoint! Meeting the Free Software community in Brussels is always one of the best moments of the year! And just before we meet again to celebrate I Love Free Software Day with the great news of the Interoperable Europe Act being adopted! This newsletter also includes our first interviews with 2023 Youth Hacking 4 Freedom participants… and more!

Table of contents:

• I Love Free Software Day 2024: Join an event!
• Interoperable Europe Act adopted, close monitoring vital
• Meet Jannes and Aaron, YH4F 2023 participants
• The FSFE partners with the Edulife Foundation to introduce Italian students to Free Software
• NGI: € 21.6 million in grants for Free Software
• Take action: Help us spread the word about Router Freedom!
• Quote of the Month
• Contribute to our Newsletter

I Love Free Software Day 2024: Join an event!

On 14 February Free Software communities around the world gather to celebrate developers, maintainers, and contributors of Free Software projects. Take part in one of the many events across Europe that celebrate the contributors to our favorite type of software: Free Software!

On this day we reach out to those people behind Free Software and say “Thank you” for their work and help throughout the year.

Visit the activity’s website to learn more about “I Love Free Software Day 2024: Forging the Future with Free Software”.

Interoperable Europe Act adopted, close monitoring vital

The Interoperable Europe Act has been adopted, on 6 February, in plenary with 524 votes in favour, 18 against, and 97 abstentions. Although some of the potential of the regulation got undermined, the Act as a whole is an important opportunity for Free Software and its community to contribute to an interoperable Europe. The FSFE will closely monitor its implementation.

Meet Jannes and Aaron, YH4F 2023 participants

Find out more about the Youth Hacking 4 Freedom participants in the 2023 edition! We are starting this series of interviews talking with Jannes and Aaron: both worked on projects related to school education, and it is particularly interesting to see how these two projects approached different aspects with a similar spirit.

The FSFE partners with the Edulife Foundation to introduce Italian students to Free Software

In the framework of the ITS Academy LAST project, the Free Software Foundation Europe and the Edulife Foundation, the operational partner of ITS Academy LAST, have developed a two-year agreement to deliver educational content to students about Free Software legal aspects, policy, and public awareness.

NGI: € 21.6 million in grants for Free Software

The Next Generation Internet (NGI) Zero consortium, of which the FSFE is a partner, has just unveiled the NGI0 Commons Fund. This new public fund will award 21.6 million euro to small and medium R&D projects developing Free Software technologies that can improve the Internet.

Take action: Help us spread the word about Router Freedom!

Since several countries have officially introduced the possibility for users to use their own routers, we want to encourage people to try out and enjoy this freedom. We need your help to design, publish, and print materials that can be used on booths and at other in-person events, so people can talk about and collectively learn about using their own routers.

• Leaflet: If we raise 3,000 euros, we can cover the costs for the design and printing of a new leaflet with a nice and intuitive design for the decision tree, as well as with basic information about Router Freedom. As are all our information materials, it will also be available under a free license on our website.
• Sticker: As a thank you for your help, did you know that you can order our Router Freedom sticker for free to show off on your liberated router/modem?

Quote of the month

I believe Free Software needs a voice at the national as well as the EU level in politics: Software does not exist in an isolated bubble, it’s heavily dependent on the ecosystem that it lives in. In my opinion Free Software as well as open standards are key to creating a society that provides equal access.

Isabel Drost-Fromm (Software Engineer and Member of the Apache Software Foundation)

Contribute to our Newsletter

We would love to hear from you. If you have any thoughts, pictures, or news to share, please send them to us at newsletter@fsfe.org. You can also support us, contribute to our work, and join our community. We would like to thank our community and all the volunteers, supporters, and donors who make our work possible, with a special mention to our translators who make it possible for you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.

Your editors, Ana and Tommi

Support FSFE