I Love Free Software Day

Imagine a Free Software community that is welcoming and appreciates its contrbituros. This community is motivating and friendly in the interaction with each other. Imaging if somebody new or old wants to participate and be part of this Free Software community, they would send an email to the project’s mailing list with new ideas. The answer and reviews to this would be grateful and full of appreciation of the work done by the contributor. When a Pull Request in this community is reviewed, and the reviewers underline how grateful they are for the effort of opening it in the first place. Imagine a Free Software community that is thankful for their contributors, developers and of course their maintainers. Such a community can easily become reality, by simply saying Thank you!

The larger a Free Software project gets, the harder it is to maintain. On “I Love Free Software Day” we acknowledge the work done by each other for Free Software, even more we appreciate the work done for Free Software. We reach out and say Thank you! to all the people maintaining and contributing to Free Software, to all the people advocating for Free Software: Thank you ♥

By doing so, we aim at creating a welcoming community in which not only seasoned enthusiasts feel safe to participate, but also new people are encouraged to join. A simple “Thank you” can motivate others to keep contributing to Free Software!

With a simple Thank you! we appreciate the work and effort put into Free Software by its contributors

Free Software is not just any type of software: it is a community, it is software that empowers users and it is out there for all of us to use, understand, share, and improve. Let us foster the growth of a lovely and welcoming Free Software community, by celebrating the software that empowers us! ♥

I ♥ Free Software Day 2024: Forge the future of Free Software

“I Love Free Software Day” has been a long lasting tradition. On this day, we thank all the people behind Free Software projects or programs and let them know that their work does not go unnoticed. Let’s celebrate together all the wonderful people working for Free Software: you are invited to join “I Love Free Software Day” celebrations all across Europe. Connect with your local FSFE group and organise a fun meetup.

We are grateful to those who work and contribute to the Free Software universe: developers, designers, translators, advocates, donors, users, and more. There are a lot of different Free Software communities out there, with different values or different focuses in their work. But we all share our love for Free Software and value the freedom to use, study, share and improve software. Let's celebrate our appreciation for Free Software and the people behind it with a simple Thank you!

This year’s edition is themed “Forge the future with Free Software” because we want to focus on the critical value of new generations. We want to involve youngsters in the celebration, both by thanking young contributors, and by introducing the principles of Free Software to those who were not aware of it before. You can be part of this by joing the celebrations and organising a gathering in your local area.

Join the party

Do you want to celebrate with other Free Software enthusiasts? Soon, we will be announcing the gatherings happening all around Europe! Follow us on social media not to miss anything!

If you want to organise an event in your local area feel free to reach out to us via email. For "I Love Free Software Day 2024" we want to organise events dedicated for young people. Here are some ideas:

• Contact your local library and organise a reading of our children's book "Ada & Zangemann"
• Contact your local hackerspace and organise a Free Software meet-up with them
• Contact your local youth club and organise an event there with talks about Free Software, hands on workshops, and Pizza!
• Reach out to your local Linux user group or your local Free Software group and organise an event together!

What is your contribution to this special day dedicated to the people who enable you to use Free Software? Will you use our stickers and balloons? Or make a picture or video with your new ILoveFS shirt? And what about celebrating software freedom with your colleagues and friends at a company gathering or public event? Whatever you do, show it to the world by using the #ilovefs tag. And if you have questions, just drop us an email.

Happy I Love Free Software Day everyone! ❤