SFSCON 2023 +++ YH4F winners +++ REUSE goes to space
Our yearly report, Software Freedom in Europe 2023, is out. At the YH4F award ceremony, we learned about the awesome projects from this edition's winners, our team went to Bolzano to SFSCON, and we are happy to find out how the REUSE specification keeps on helping developers, such as the ones at the German Aerospace Center. Find these and other stories in our November issue!
Table of contents
Software Freedom in Europe 2023
Our yearly report is out! In 2023, Software Freedom has been back on stage, while we have boosted our activities for the coming generations with our children’s book and the coding competition for young Europeans. We have also continued to bring our demands to lawmakers, helped projects to become REUSE compliant, and shared many great moments with our community.
Find out about our YH4F second edition winners!
A real-time plotter for micro-controllers, a classroom quiz platform, a radio tool, a device that provides bags to pick up your dog’s poo, a game engine to help non-programmers develop their ideas, and a program to search for a file on your computer by its hash. These are the six projects that won the 2023 edition of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom.
REUSE goes to space!
The German Aerospace Center has adopted the REUSE specification in some of its projects. We have talked to Tobias Schlauch, research software engineer at the DLR, about the role of Free Software for research, innovation, and the importance of a clear understanding and displaying of the legal information of software projects. He highlights the special contributions that REUSE has to offer for software development but also for research.
Fediverse Symposium: Recordings are now online
More than 70 people came together, in Cologne on 22 September, to get an insight into the Fediverse and to discuss the importance of decentralised social networks for our society. If you were not able to join our Fediverse Symposium or want to re-watch the talks, we now have the German-language recordings on our PeerTube instance for you!
SFSCON: What a great experience!
Last Friday and Saturday, the FSFE team participated in SFSCON23. We had a great time and we really loved both the environment and the ideas that were circulating. It was also a great chance to meet the Italian Free Software community, with volunteers and friends we haven’t seen in a long time.
The European SFS Award was awarded during SFSCON to Frank Karlitscheck, founder of Nextcloud, a remote collaboration tool for teams under the GNU AGPL. This is the first time that the SFS Award has been extended to the European level, and FSFE joins its organiser Linux User Group Bolzano (LUGBZ) in this recognition.
Stay tuned on our channels to know more about what happened during SFSCON!
From our Community
A lot of things happened in our Planet in recent weeks! Check out the experience of our Vienna local group with an FSFE booth at the 25th anniversary of the Veganmania or the post about Ada, and Promote Digital Maturity by reading books to others.
In October many Italian communities gathered to celebrate Linux Day! From Palermo to Milan, enthusiasts as well as newcomers from various Italian cities met to explore topics related to Linux and Free Software, and of course to hear more readings of ‘Ada & Zangemann’! If you want to get involved or just stay informed about the activities organised by the Italian FSFE community, the Italian FSFE Team would love to welcome you.
The members of the Free Software Foundation Europe held their General Assembly on 21 and 22 October at Linuxhotel in Essen. This annual meeting is held to discuss the course for the overall direction of the organization. Among other things the current Executive Council was re-elected: Matthias Kirschner as President, Heiki Lõhmus as Vice President, and Patrick Ohnewein as Financial Officer.
And some last big news! You can now watch -and share- our “What is Free Software” video in Albanian and Finnish! You can find them in our What is Free Software playlist. Thanks to our supporters for making this happen!
FSFE Code of Conduct
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and its community aim to offer a friendly and peaceful environment for every participant at the FSFE's events, online and offline.
Therefore, we are committed to ensuring welcoming and respectful environments for our staff, volunteers, and participants, and we will uphold our Code of Conduct. Misbehaviour can lead to exclusion from our events and/or our technical infrastructure.
If you have been in a situation in which the spirit of the Code of Conduct was breached, please be in touch with our central CARE team.
Quote of the Month
“Four decades of the free software movement have put us today in the position to widely deploy software that gives people rights with respect to the critical technology they rely on. The next 40 years is critical. I'm confident the diversity of voices and organizations working together will make it possible to achieve the hard work and vision of the movement's ideals, democratizing our technology and instituting ethical software for all of our essential infrastructure.”
Karen Sandler, Executive Director of the Software Freedom Conservancy (from her testimony for the GNU 40th anniversary)
Contribute to our Newsletter
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Your editor,
Ana Galán