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<p>Heya all,</p>
<p>Hackerspaces in my experience have been about a lot of things
(friendship, technology, society, sharing knowledge, ...). I
firmly believe that a sustainable hackerspace should hide in its
little bubble, but needs to interact with society. A lot of us are
convinced that the four freedoms of Free, Libre and Open Source
have bettered society in many ways. We also see walled gardens
popping up more and more eating away our freedoms.</p>
<p>A few years ago, we had SFD on hundreds of locations all over the
world. The last few years, COVID has eaten all these activities...<br>
</p>
<p>Today I would like to challenge you all to celebrate Software
Freedom Day in September. I'll elaborate on the Why and the How
down here (just my opinions - not dogma)...</p>
<h2>Why?</h2>
<ol>
<li>Technical people already use (FL)OSS more than they are often
aware of. I'm thinking of free tools, but certainly also free
libraries that other technology is built on. Often liberal
licenses like MIT end up becoming invisible (but that's the
choice of the licensor so who am I to discuss it)?</li>
<li>Given that more and more applications nowadays have a cloud
component, it will become increasingly important to educate a
wider audience of the choices and tradeoffs they make. Where the
typical hacker congresses (CCC & the likes) will focus on
unveiling hidden connections and how they (inter)act, Software
Freedom Day will be less technical but can also touch the same
conclusions.<br>
</li>
<li>It's a great opportunity to get in touch with other like
minded groups in your area (I'm thinking LUG's, JUGs, Python
groups, OpenStreetmap groups, Repair cafés, ...) to team up and
build a network around your physical area. You might be
surprised what's already out there.<br>
</li>
</ol>
<h2>How?</h2>
<p>Meh... I'd say: KISS. Whatever you like to do. Just a few
ideas...<br>
</p>
<ul>
<li>Workshops on how to use free software</li>
<li>Talks, debates, ... on how to switch to NextCloud,
OpenStreetmap, LibreOffice, Inkscape, ...</li>
<li>Linux Install Party<br>
</li>
<li>How to set up a Pi-hole in your home.</li>
<li>Online streaming of a rant or tutorial</li>
<li>Barbecue with free software and affordable beers</li>
<li>Organize a little layman's CTF (Juice shop) and own the hacker
cliché<br>
</li>
<li>...<br>
</li>
</ul>
<p>You could have a look at the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/StartGuide">Software
Freedom Wiki</a> to get some inspiration. If you <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.softwarefreedomday.org/cgi-bin/register.py">register
your event</a>, it will appear on the website too, and we'll be
promoting it a bit more actively through other social media
channels. We're also reaching out to sponsors in the open source
community and will be handing out prizes to teams who are
exceptional on a specific field (e.g. MuseScore will be giving a
year subscription to their online platform that complements their
FOSS software). If you have any questions (or want to help
organize the global event), don't hesitate to pop in to our <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://matrix.to/#/#SoftwareFreedomDay:matrix.org">Matrix
channel</a>!<br>
</p>
<p>Full disclosure, I'm part of the team organizing Software Freedom
Day globally and would like to spark a new fire to the event (I'm
not paid or professionally connected in any way though).</p>
<p>Hope to hear from you all!<br>
Greetings,<br>
Jurgen<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
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