I ♥ Free Software Day & SUSE OSCC network
We got an email, a few weeks ago, that caught our attention. It came with a donation explaining that it was made in the name of an employee network at SUSE. We decided to investigate, asked the people responsible, and today we want to share this awesome story with you. (Note - this is also a great idea for an initiative to ask your company about).
I'm part of a special interest group / employee network at SUSE called the SUSE Open Source Community Citizens (OSCC). In the spirit of the "I Love Free Software Day", we asked our SUSE colleagues to share why they got into and love Free Software. Every story told was being rewarded with 50 EUR that is going to be donated to the Free Software Foundation Europe, to support any of the activities that you're doing.
Of course our curiosity was piqued: we wanted to see the messages that they shared, to know a bit more about the SUSE OSCC group and this initiative and to know why they chose us. This is what we found:
On 14 February 2024, SUSE celebrated "I Love Free Software" day with its employees around the world with a variety of activities. One of the activities, organised by the SUSE employee volunteers of the Open Source Community Citizens, was simple: tell us why you got into Free/Libre/Open Source (FLOSS) Software and why you love it. Easy, right?
But that was not all! With the support of SUSE Cares, the SUSE Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, every story was worth $50! To donate to a non-profit charity. And for this occasion OSCC chose the Free Software Foundation Europe.
About 50 people participated sharing their 'I Love FS' messages, mainly internally through the internal communications wall but also externally on social media. In total, the amount of 2500EUR was reached, matching the Silver Sponsorship level!.
“The employee network / special interest group that organized this is focused on Open Source/Free Software and community activities. We like and generally endorse many of the activities from FSFE and several SUSE employees have been active in free software communities pretty much since GPLv2 was released. I personally have a connection to that as well”, explained Dirk Müller, one of the main organisers of this activity and a member of the OSCC group.
Andy Fitzsimon, the sponsor of the employee network, said: “SUSE is proud to support the Free Software Foundation Europe, championing the ideals of free/libre software. Our donation reflects our commitment to fostering a collaborative community where technology and innovation benefit everyone.”
Although most of the reasons, often with personal messages that were shared by the SUSE colleagues, were shared within SUSE, some were posted on public social media. A few samples are below:
An awesome action, right? It really makes us happy to hear stories like these about I Love Free Software celebrations! And even more, when the initiative comes from the employees and the company supports them!
You can also help us by asking your employer to donate to the FSFE as part of their corporate responsibility program.
Donate nowFootnotes
- SUSE Cares is a corporate program at SUSE that focuses on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and manages a budget for the philanthropic giving program, which empowers our colleagues to volunteer their time and direct corporate donations to non-profit organizations that support any of SUSE’s chosen philanthropic goals like Education and Digital Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunities or climate action.