#ilovefs Report 2016
Sunday 14 February 2016 was a day to declare love for people we care for. On this day, as a yearly tradition, the Free Software community celebrates "I love Free Software" day to thank developers behind Free Software. This year, for the 6th time, FSFE asked everyone to participate and express their appreciation and gratitude to their favourite Free Software contributors.
We gathered the variety of love declarations that happened on this day, including blog posts, pictures, comics, videos and more. FSFE thanks everyone who participated and who made #ilovefs day a success. Please mark next year's 14 February as "I Love Free Software" day to continue this nice tradition of acknowledging the people and hard work of everyone behind Free Software.
"I love Free Software, because..."
Love for Free Software got expressed in many ways. Favourite projects got named and acknowledged during FOSDEM (see our gallery) with users and developers expressing their gratitude towards projects their love. Check it out if your favourite Free Software is missing from the list and use the chance to say "thank you".
FOSDEM was not the only place for sweet Free Software love declarations. Social media and blogs were full of love towards Free Software, for example for Emacs, git-cola, GNU/Linux, Chromium, Thunderbird and Scribus.
Our president Matthias Kirschner took his time to acknowledge Transportr, a Free Software public transport program for Android. Our German Team Coordinator Max Mehl blogged about his favourite Free Software applications for smartphones: operating system OmniROM, the feature-rich e-mail client K-9 Mail, or secure chitchat app LibreSignal, while our Coordinator for Greek team Nikos Roussos wrote a blogpost about how to secure all of online communication, including chat and video calls. Our Education Team Coordinator Guido Arnold thanked developers behind a free firmware/OS for routers OpenWRT, and our Fellowship Coordinator Erik Albers acknowledged people behind Osmand, his favourite navigation app.
Free Software is like love - it is about sharing and caring
Wikimedia Germany posted a blogpost interviewing their staffers about the role and importance of Free Software and its future, along with Digitalcourage sending their valentine card to CiviCRM, a Free Software contact manager. The Freifunk community in the German town Magdeburg labelled their latest OpenWRT-based firmware release 0.34 "#ilovefs". And the Free Software students' association of Jagiellonian University in Krakow decorated its university, featured love messages of its members, and also created two awesome memes.
Several organisations and Free Software projects supported our campaign and advertised #ilovefs through their media of choice. Opensource.com took a chance to thank the community moderators, columnists, advisors and the countless people behing the free software. KDE e.V expressed their love for "freedom" in Free Software that entails everything from technology to people and social equanimity. #ilovefs also got supported by The Document Foundation, Open Source Business Alliance, LUKi, Kolab Systems, Debian, and Xfce.
#ilovefs got also featured in LinuxVoice, on German Free Software news website pro-linux.de, in French media at toolinux.com, in Arabic at itwadi.com, in Italian by LibreItalia, and in Spanish on windtux.com and KDE Blog.
Politicians did not fall behind either. The Member of European Parliament Julia Reda sent her love to Videolan VLC, and German Green Party explained why they support Free Software alongside thanking Free Software developers.
This is not all!
There is never too much love for Free Software. Baked goods, 3D printed hearts, stunning artwork, endearing photos, creative memes and gifs, Free Software activism, love letters, self-made postcards and witty comic strips, along with countless e-mails with personal thank you notes to individual developers that we cannot keep a track of (well, because we are not the NSA). Love for Free Software was in the air around the globe and we hope that many thanks reached out and motivated all Free Software contributors out there.
Don't be shy, admit your love Free Software - save the date for next year!
We want to thank all #ilovefs participants for acknowledging the importance of a hard work and dedication of individuals behind Free Software on the day we celebrate love. Mark the date, 14 February, for the next year to acknowledge the ones that were not mentioned this time. We also encourage you to say thank you in between whenever you feel it is appropriate.
