DMA survey +++ SFP ++++ Summer Meeting
Summer has arrived, and with it came our annual Summer Meeting, where we spent time with our community. Learn more about the latest developments surrounding the Digital Markets Act, take a few minutes to share your perspective in our Interoperability Survey, and listen to the newest episode of our podcast. You can also read the latest news about Ada & Zangemann and Youth Hacking 4 Freedom.
Table of contents
- Quote of the Month
- DMA: tell us how gatekeepers are handling your interoperability requests
- SFP#35: Policy and EU: Tech sovereignty vote in the ITRE Committee
- "YH4F provides teenagers with a platform to express their ideas and develop skills that are crucial for their future careers"
- Ada & Zangemann: thanks to our volunteers we can now enjoy the book and the movie in Danish!
- Join Us as an Intern and Help Advance Software Freedom!
- From the stages to your screen: videos from the latest conferences
- Contribute to our Newsletter
Quote of the Month
“Coming together with fellow volunteers and staff at the Software Freedom Flat in Berlin this summer filled me with joy and hope. Sharing stories, ideas, and laughter with people who care so deeply about software freedom always reminds me why I do this work and it recharges my FSFE batteries. It was especially exciting to meet some people for the first time – your presence meant a lot. I left feeling energized, and I can’t wait to see everyone again and welcome even more next time.”
Florain Snow, FSFE volunteer.
DMA: tell us how gatekeepers are handling your interoperability requests
Free Software developers: your voice is needed! The FSFE has launched the DMA Interoperability Survey, aimed at collecting crucial input from Free Software developers who have tried, or plan to try, to request interoperability from companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon under Article 6(7) of the DMA.
We want to monitor how gatekeepers are handling the interoperability requests submitted by Free Software developers. We want to hear the developers’ experiences and to make sure their voices are heard when gatekeepers fall short of their obligations.
If you are a Free Software developer and made or plan to make an interoperability request under Article 6(7) of the DMA, we need your help! Whether your request was successful, delayed, denied, or ignored: your insights are valuable. Please, take a look at the survey or share it with anyone for whom this might be relevant.
SFP#35: Policy and EU: Tech sovereignty vote in the ITRE Committee
Our episode number 35 of the Software Freedom Podcast comes with our monthly update on policy decisions, votes and discussions in the European Union! Together Bonnie Mehring and Alexander Sander talk about one specific policy topic in regard to Free Software. This month they sat down and covered the vote on the Tech sovereignty INI in the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE).
"YH4F provides teenagers with a platform to express their ideas and develop skills that are crucial for their future careers"
The 2025 Youth Hacking 4 Freedom programming period come to an end at the end of June, marking the start of the evaluation phase. Among the jury members is Alexios Zavras, who has been involved since the very first edition of the contest. Let us hear his insights on the YH4F competition and what motivates him to be part of the jury.
Ada & Zangemann: thanks to our volunteers we can now enjoy the book and the movie in Danish!
You should know by now: our volunteers are really amazing! Thanks to our Danish local group, the story of Ada & Zangemann can be also found in Danish in both the book and the movie.
The Danish translation as well as the voice recording for the film was done on a voluntary basis by Øjvind Fritjof Arnfred, and the production of the Danish edition of the film was kindly sponsored by PROSA (the Danish IT Worker's Union) and David Heinemeier Hansson. The Danish version of the film had its premiere on March 27, 2025, in the cinema Øst for Paradis in Århus – followed by a Q&A and debate with the author, FSFE President Matthias Kirschner. The book was officially published on June 16, 2025, on which day an official book launch and a second screening of the film took place in the Empire Cinema in Copenhagen – followed by a Q&A with the translator and a panel debate about digital sovereignty through Free Software featuring, among others, FSFE Senior Policy Project Manager Johannes Näder.
Learn more about the publishing process through the blog post of Carsten Agger, one of the volunteers behind this.
Join us as an intern and contribute to software freedom!
We are looking for passionate interns to join our team and help us achieve software freedom! Whether you're a coder, a policy enthusiast, eager to sharpen your communication skills, or ready to dive into the world of Free Software licensing, there’s a place for you to contribute and grow. This is your chance to learn from our team of experts and see how your daily work can make a real-world impact.
From the stages to your screen: videos from the latest conferences
We really enjoy attending conferences, and over the past few weeks, we’ve been quite busy. The recordings from our talks at DevConf.CZ 2025 in Brno, DORS/CLUC 2025, and the openSUSE 2025 Conference are already online and can be watched at media.fsfe.org. We also attended T-DOSE, MERGE-It, and OpenSouthCode!
On the last weekend of June, we also celebrated our annual FSFE Summer Meeting with some of our volunteers in Berlin. It was a pleasure to spend time with some of you there, although we also missed others who couldn’t make it.
The 2025 Summer Meeting took place at the Software Freedom Flat, where we had interesting discussions about our current projects and our volunteers’ work, as well as amazing food and Italian homemade ice cream!
Contribute to our Newsletter
We would love to hear from you. If you have any thoughts, pictures, or news to share, please send them to us at newsletter@fsfe.org. You can also support us, contribute to our work, and join our community. We would like to thank our community and all the volunteers, supporters, and donors who make our work possible, with a special mention to our translators who make it possible for you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.
Your editor,
Ana