A few months ago, I asked about who’s organizing Software Freedom Day.
Currently, we’re at 18 events on the map, which is 10 more than last year the same moment. So that’s a great thing. This year, the official date is September 21st (3rd Saturday of September).
Don’t know what Software Freedom Day is? Local teams or small groups organise physical events, mainly for a non-technical audience. Demonstrating the value of FOSS, and explaining how your choice of software is also an ethical decision.
Have a look if there’s a place you can join in… or maybe tag up with a few friends and organize something yourself. Doesn’t have to be big.
What would you think are great ideas to do on Software Freedom Day?
that’s too bad.
There now is a French page explaining SFD:
Also, luckily not all countries are French speaking. Maybe next year some people will then see the value of the event. I really believe in the power of planting seedlings.
Has anyone noticed @Jurgen is plugging one thing only?
No other contribution to this forum of any kind comes from this person.
Planting seedlings on various sites for donations is my guess.
I had never checked the types of questions or comments by other membres just assuming everyone was like me, here to help each other in our quest for education, understanding and sharing the linux ideas.
Not sure how you can stop or weed out anything like that ?
My own stories i share are about clients who i see with related linux problems, but i dont post for gains just sharing experiances. Hard to seperate one for another.
Hey Gary,
you are indeed right that I haven’t contributed anything else on itsfoss (I have been active in helping people in other ways in the FOSS world though).
Let’s tell a bit more about myself: first off, I’m purely volunteering for the Software Freedom Day movement. So I’m not getting paid for this (in the contrary, I’ve paid for a few things out of my own pocket). I care a lot about Software Freedom Day - have been organizing it in Brussels myself since 2011 (in our hackerspace, small scale). I only joined the organisation behind SFD in 2023 to volunteer as board member - trying to revive the event and get some fresh air into it.
So if I make a lot of noise about this event, it’s because I think it’s an important event that should have more visibility. Back in 2006-2011, the SFD movement organized events on over 500 places around the world, and were an important place where people could get their Ubuntu Ship-It CD’s. Back then, I am confident that they seriously helped with the spreading of Linux in general (and Ubuntu specifically) as a desktop OS. Currently we’re at a point where walled gardens are locking people into closed systems and the values of Software Freedom are more important than ever to show that the current free (as in price) offerings are actually damaging people both individually and as a society.
So yes, I think the SFD movement will need a bit of funding in the future (to enable shipping swag packs to teams organizing SFD some day), but I am not asking people here to contribute. There are other outlets for that.
And if you don’t trust me or the movement I’m representing… that’s fine. Then don’t register your event. But please don’t use your distrust in me as an excuse for not showing people how important software freedom is, and demonstrating that these applications also can be very powerful.
I appreciate you pointing out your observation, because I wasn’t aware of it. And I’ll try to indeed also be more active contributing in this platform (though my technical skills are not that extensive, but I’ve been a desktop Linux user since 2011). I’ll try to give more attention to see if I can answer questions about Inkscape, FreeCAD, …)
Then you are more experienced than you think. @Gary 's observation is fair enough, but so is your response.
As @xahodo says, SFD is relevant to FOSS.
You get little feedback because not everyone is interested in community activities.
Try some different post topics
Yeah, I fully agree that @Gary raised a valid concern. That’s also why I appreciated him pointing it out, and I took the effort of explaining myself (and I’ll try to engage more in the community here too)
I’m aware that not everyone is a community builder. Some of us are introverts, maybe even hurt by society in more than one way. But as with every other forum post on this platform: if the topic is not in your field of interest: just skip it and go to the next one. I mean… I won’t engage in discussions about troubleshooting graphics cards - I hardly know anything about that topic.
And yes, I know I’m pretty experienced in Linux - so I do peruse the forums here… but most of the time I’m too late and someone else already answered the question in a clear and concise way. No need to duplicate answers at that point. I should learn to make a point of tagging/hearting answers that I liked.