Help us now to grow bigger and make a difference in 2017
This year, FSFE celebrated its 15th birthday. 15 years of empowering users, supporting communities and pushing for better legislation. 15 years to see that all activities, even if considered small at the time, can become big when we work together. 15 years to see that all activities, even if considered impossible at the time, can succeed when we stand together. Together, we sometimes succeeded even against the heaviest lobbying of large interest groups. 15 years to know that all of this would not have been possible without the continuous support of our community, contributing thousands of hours of their work time and backing us financially. Help us now to grow bigger and make a difference in 2017.
Public Money - Public Code
In the mid of next year we will be launching a new campaign to reach out into new audiences. Under the slogan of "Public Money, Public Code", we will illuminate how public money is constantly (mis-)used in countries across Europe by paying for proprietary software, vendor lock-in and dependency. Investing in Free Software, instead, will serve public needs and interest on a big scale. The campaign aims to make Free Software a mandatory requirement in public procurement by law, but more importantly, in practice too. If Free Software becomes the default in public administration, this will have massive positive impact on other areas and the empowerment of our society. We will align with other political organisations and together focus on getting this message out.
The strength of this campaign depends on your support. Every donation helps: We need to produce a lot of information material and spread it around, we like to train activists and bring them together, we want to facilitate travel costs to bring people together with local decision makers in politics and public administration. Also we are in contact with a professional video artist to create a video that explains the benefits of publicly funded Free Software in a way anyone can understand. This will help us to go viral.
Please help us get this message out with your donation before the next year starts and give our movement for Free Software in public administration the decisive boost it needs.
Challenges in 2017
Of course, running this campaign will not stop us from doing other important activities and to stand up for Free Software where necessary. If you decide to join us with your continuous support, you can be assured to found the best way to help our movement and the furthering of Free Software throughout the year and to support various activities. To mention just a few of them:
- At this moment, the European Commission is revising copyright to be more adaptable for the digital age. To get them things right, we will continue to raise awareness and address the dangerous implications of technical restrictions measures forced on users by the revised copyright rules.
- Important elections will be held in 2017 in many European countries. We will be working hard to convince candidates of the importance of Free Software and thereby improving future policy decisions.
- We will increase our efforts to empower even more users to challenge the corporations and legislations that limit their freedom. We will support booths on events all over Europe and encourage the launch of more local groups.
