SFP#49: O Captain! Let's talk about the FSFE Zurich group!
Back to the episode SFP#49
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Hello and welcome to the Software Freedom Podcast.
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Thank you so much for tuning in.
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This podcast is brought to you by the Free Software Foundation Europe.
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We are a charity that empowers users to control technology.
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I'm Bonnie Mehring, and today I'm here with Ralf Hersel.
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The podcast from GNU/Linux.ch.
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But not only is Ralph the host of the podcast, he's also part of the FSFe's local group in Zurich.
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Hello Ralph, thank you so much for making it.
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Hello Bonnie.
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Thank you for having me.
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you so much for making it.
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Hello Bonnie.
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Thank you for having me.
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And what I just recognized is that GNU/Linux say hard doesn't sound very well in English.
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So if you have to say GNU/Linux.ch.
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And since I have to talk about this in this episode, I think I will shorten it by just saying GL.
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Okay, GL sounds very like it's a very important instrument.
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You know what I mean?
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So we just noticed that this is the first time that you are part of the software freedom podcast.
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But I have been in the Captain it's Wednesday podcast beforehand.
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And we also picked up on that we do this podcast recording quite differently, right?
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Yeah.
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Yeah, so at the Captain it's Wednesday podcast we have everything is very automated.
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So I just have after recording to push one button and then the mix and everything and the publication.
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And all of this is done automatically.
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But I will talk about this later.
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I'm very curious to learn more.
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So today we will also not only talk about podcasting, but we will also talk a bit about the FSFE's local group in Zurich and how the Free Software is in Switzerland in general.
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Because you are from Switzerland as obviously Zurich is part of Switzerland.
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So how could you very briefly tell us how you got involved in the FSFE's local group in Zurich?
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Yes.
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I mean, that's a long time ago.
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I think about 20 years ago I became interested in Free Software and wanted to join the community.
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And at that time I discovered a local group which I think they don't exist anymore.
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They were called Knus and Pensions in Zurich and I met up with the people there a few times.
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And that's where I found about the Ubuntueros group which I joined.
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And with this group, we organized three Ubukon conventions in Switzerland.
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I think the first one was in winter tour and then in Zurich and the last one in Basel.
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And a few years later we renamed the group Tuxeros because we didn't want to focus solely on Ubuntu.
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So we widened up the space and then as fewer and fewer people joined Tuxeros,
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the remaining members joined the FSFE local group Zurich.
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How did you learn about the FSFE?
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Ah, that's in.
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I don't know when I learned about it.
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What's just floating around there?
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Yes and that's so many.
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I mean that's decades ago.
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I think that I learned about it as I was participating in all the groups.
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I mentioned so Gnudi, Knus and Pensions and Tuxeros and Ubuntueros
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and all the conventions we joined.
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But I cannot tell you the exact date when I learned about the FSFE local group.
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No, don't worry, I was not expecting that exact date.
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I still know the moment when I learned about FSFE.
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I was investing one of the Congresses, like the House Communication Congress.
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You know the event, it's always between the years and it's very famous in Germany at least.
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And I don't know, friends of mine, they started to learn this Free Software song
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because they were like, oh, there's a Free Software song sing along and they played it on the flute
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and they took me there and I was like, oh, this is the FSFE.
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Nice to meet you.
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To be honest, I never joined the Congress because it's between Christmas and New Year
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and that's also family time.
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And for me, it's most times it's vacation time.
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So we grew for skiing and whatever.
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Yeah, I can imagine there are two groups of people.
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There are those who say, oh, Congress, this is a really, really bad time of the year.
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And there are those who go there anyway.
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I'm very curious to learn who's going there and who isn't because I find this very fascinating.
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That's some value this time and some are like, I want to also spend this in the House family.
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So I guess it's also a bit about how you got socialized there.
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But this, I sang in August with a team, I think, of four people.
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And yeah, I'm looking forward to this convention because it's the first time that we do a community meeting
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with our podcast listeners.
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Oh, wow. I'm very curious.
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I'm very intrigued now to learn more about that and how it goes.
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So you have to tell me afterwards, please.
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Yes. So yeah, we will do a community meeting for the listeners of our podcast.
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And we will have a desk there.
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Maybe it's just close to the FSFE desk.
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I don't know because we ask for this, but I think that's not an option that you can ask for.
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But it would be nice.
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Also, I won't be there, but I'm very much looking forward to learn how the community meet up will go.
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So I'm very much looking forward to the article afterwards on GNU/Linux.ch.
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GL just call it GL.
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Okay, let's try to go with GL.
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So with the FSFE local group now, you have also just love that we discovered how you joined this group.
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And yes, you have also just recently participated in the I love Free Software day.
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How was it and what happened there?
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Yeah, actually, we have been celebrating I love Free Software day at the FSFE for a long time.
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By the way, Bonnie, do you remember when it started in which year?
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It must be 2010 as far as I remember.
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Okay, so then I'm writing it for a long time.
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Including in Zurich.
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And in previous years, we usually met for just for dinner and invited other interested parties to join us.
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And that changed last year.
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In 25, when we organized talks, who's content matched the theme of the I love Free Software day.
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And this year's theme was maintenance.
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I think that's right.
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Yeah, maintenance matters exactly.
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Yeah, which is why we brought four talks on this topic to the stage.
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And there were about external plus plus open BSD and Libres SL, new pipe and new taler.
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And admittedly, the last talk was not about maintenance.
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But Leo, so Leo Möller and I had experimented a lot with new taler beforehand and didn't want to withhold our findings from the community.
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So we would have liked to see more visitors on the I love Free Software day and especially more diversity.
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But we just had 15 men present at that day.
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Oh, so it's quite a man-dominated event for you.
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Yes, as often.
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I just recently had this conversation with somebody else that I'm organizing in my free time a stumptage.
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I don't really know how else to call it.
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But it's like a meetup basically for Free Software people in the area and they're hardly any women joining as well.
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So it's quite a problem that you're facing.
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But not the topic of today's podcast.
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Yeah, I mean, we are counting in the Zurich local group.
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We are counting talking about changing the place where we meet because now we are in a typical hacker space.
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I don't know if there is a typical hacker space.
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But in Zurich, it's a very old building or you could call it also a ruin.
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And it's not the nicest place.
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So maybe this is also a reason why there are most of the times old men because it's not so attractive for women, I guess.
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Maybe, maybe. I don't know.
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I still hope that this will change in the future and that, yeah, I also guess it's about where you advertise.
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So I just also joined a local Haecksen group here in Nürnberg.
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So I guess if you like more joined those rooms and advertising those rooms, then you also get more people to join you.
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But do you like the theme of the I Love Free Software Day events like the maintainers matter?
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Yeah, as I just said, we had three real maintainers.
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And it was very interesting to hear about their perspective.
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And when they talked about their work.
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And then Leo and me, we spoiled it with the last talk about.
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I guess it was the very interesting.
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Yes, of course, of course.
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Everybody wants to pay with GNU Taler.
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Unfortunately, that's only possible in Switzerland.
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But the team behind GNU Taler, they are very keen on bringing it to whole Europe.
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But this will take some time.
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I don't know. Have you ever heard about GNU Taler?
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I just was at a conference this weekend, like the previous few days.
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And there they used GNU Taler to pay for the drinks.
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But I just saw it there.
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I was like, very intrigued to kind of like get into it.
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But then I also was like, maybe next time.
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Yeah, you cannot.
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Nowadays, you need this with bank account.
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They have to set up and everything.
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You can download the wallet there.
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And you can put money on the wallet with an automate there.
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So you could like really actually try it.
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Yes, without the real bank account attached it.
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You just gave like bar money to them, like cash.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So it was a bit different, I guess.
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So yeah, that was why I was like, oh, I don't really want to try it now.
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I first want to learn more about it.
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Maybe I shouldn't want you for another episode about GNU Taler.
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Yeah.
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But apart from the I love Free Software day, what is the FSFP local group in Zurich app for?
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Like, what do you do usually?
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How is it going there?
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So first of all, I would like to emphasize that the activities of the Free Software,
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FSFP Zurich are transparent and public.
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So we meet monthly alternating between in person and online meetings.
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And the minutes are taken at our meetings and you can find the link in the show notes.
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So we have carried out many projects over the years.
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And I don't know all of them.
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But the most important ones are learn like the pros.
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So actually we never had an English name for this in German.
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It's learn with the Profis.
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So yeah, I don't know if learn like the pros is the best translation.
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It's a project on Free Software in schools and universities.
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We try to approach the students that are trying to become teachers.
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So the target group was like younger people?
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Yeah, the target group were teachers.
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We were just studying this subject.
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So we thought this was the best leverage.
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Instead of going to hundreds of different schools and talk to pupils,
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we thought it's a better idea to talk to the teachers which are at university.
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And which are the multipliers then in the end?
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Exactly.
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How was this received by the teachers?
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Not at all because we didn't manage to get into the universities.
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Okay.
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They had no interest at all.
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Do you know why or was there a specific reason?
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Because of the Corona pandemic.
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Oh, okay, yeah.
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Does I can't imagine?
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Yeah, and another one which was last year was our end of 10 series.
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So where we had three workshops to help people to switch to Linux.
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And that was okay.
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So we had, let's say, between 20 and 30 participants in these workshops.
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And another one which I did together with Leo Merler was called Free Your Android.
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A workshop on Google Free smartphones.
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And this was repeated two or three times.
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And I think we will continue with this.
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Because people are always interested if you talk not just about computers and Linux,
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but about a smartphone.
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What you can do to free your smartphone.
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So if you like offer a broader point of view and not just one topic.
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Yeah, it's about what alternative app stores you can use.
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What alternative custom ROMs you can use.
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It's not the hardcore way so that you try to use a phone which completely runs with Free Software.
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Because that's hard to find these days.
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The easiest one is that you use after it as an alternative store to install applications.
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And a second step to use a custom ROM.
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And that's what we promote in this workshop.
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And that's very well anticipated.
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Ah, yeah, I can't imagine.
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And then that happens some years ago.
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We created the photo book which is a printed booklet in which people tell their stories about Free Software.
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So with the pictures and then they provide some sentences how they came into the Free Software area.
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They had the possibility to recommend some projects and what's their favorite app free applications that they used.
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And this was also a nice thing, physical thing because it was a printed booklet.
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Oh, that sounds so cute right?
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Yeah, yeah.
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And then on the political area we had a project called Freedom Vote.
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And that was a survey in which candidates for the Swiss Parliament elections could express their stance on Free Software and free society.
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You know this, how is this called? Val O'Mart?
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Yes, yeah, yeah, it's Val O'Mart in Germany, yes.
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What's the English translation for Val O'Mart?
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I don't know.
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I'm not quite sure if other countries even have a kind of thing like that.
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So if you have an idea of what election O'Mart means then you have also an idea of what Freedom Vote means.
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It's the same concept but dedicated to questions around Free Software and free society.
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All right, this sounds like a lot of work.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And the last initiative that I would like to mention is FediGov.
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So FediGov is the combination of Fediverse and government.
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And this is an initiative that aims to get the government to use the Fediverse for public communication.
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So as you know, I think also in Germany a lot of politicians, they are posting on X, Twitter.
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And we tried to convince the government that this is not a good idea.
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So we didn't tell them that they should avoid this but at least to have site channel or an alternative.
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And therefore we recommended to use the Fediverse for public communication.
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At least as an alternative to this proprietary and commercial channels.
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I know your players that they are very well received when I hand them out at conference to others.
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Yeah, I think this, we have several translations of this initiative.
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I think there's something in Dutch and in Ukraine, English, French, Italian.
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So I mean the website that we created for FediGov.
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So you will find the link in the show notes.
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I think it's FediGov.eu.
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Yes.
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It sounds like you have a lot of activities there.
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How many people are part of this local group and how can you manage to do such a lot like such a variety in activities?
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That's a good question.
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I mean the activities that I talked about, they are spread over 10, 15 years.
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So it's not that much if you think about the time in which we tried to accomplish this.
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So that said, we have a mailing list for FSFE Switzerland.
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And I'm not sure how many people are on this list.
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I think around 100 people or so.
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But if I look at our monthly meetings of the local group Zurich,
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they are in average 5 to 10 people participating.
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And you rock all of this.
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Even if it's like spread over 10 or 15 years, I mean like it's a constant kind of work or effort you put into this.
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And it's all about how to bring Free Software forward.
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So I find this very fascinating.
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And I find it's like a lot that you rock and a lot that you get up to.
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So well done.
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Yeah, to be honest.
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I think it's a question of the dedication or the commitment or the engagement of single persons.
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So normally you have one person who is really dedicated to an initiative.
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And 90% of the work is on the shoulders of this single person.
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Yeah.
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So if you find somebody who is really interested and is willing and has the time to spend for an initiative,
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that's usually the success factor.
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And that's not a good message.
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No, it's not at all because if this person falls away, like it's not there anymore, I don't know why.
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Then it all breaks down.
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So like the whole system just relies on this one person.
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But anyway, I mean, besides all of these initiatives or projects or activities,
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however you want to call it, we also appeared on many stages and given presentations on a wide range of free topics.
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So currently we would like to focus more on young people again because we see a lack of information about Free Software in this area.
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Maybe I don't know if this is a special thing in Switzerland because in Germany or in the rest of Europe,
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you have your house called youth fighting for freedom.
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You're packing for freedom.
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You're packing for freedom.
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You're not fighting.
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Where you're especially, yeah, okay, both would.
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So you especially address young people or younger people.
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And then you have Matthias' book.
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I don't understand.
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And Zangerman.
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So I don't know.
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Maybe you have a better overview, Bonnie, how to do initiatives which are targeted at younger persons.
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Now we have those two at the moment.
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You're packing for freedom that just for teenagers between 14 to 18 years.
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And Adam Zangerman is a book that everybody basically can read.
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And it starts, I would say, from like five, six years.
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Like if you're around this age, like shortly before you go to school or when you go to school,
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through whatever kind of age, like I had, I do readings of the book.
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And I also did a workshop with this book.
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Like you had to write a card afterwards to Adam Zangerman you could choose.
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And there were also a girl who was like 12 or even older.
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So they are also people participating or teenagers participating in this reading there.
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So this book speaks to a wide range of people.
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But those are the two that we currently have.
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How are you trying to engage young people?
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As I said, so we tried to do the thing with the teachers at universities which didn't work out.
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I guess because of the pandemic.
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And I also wrote some letters to authorities which are responsible for the educational contents at schools.
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This didn't work very well.
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They said, no, we are not responsible.
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You have to talk to the schools themselves.
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And you can imagine, I mean, that doesn't work out if you have to talk to hundreds and thousands of individual schools.
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So this is currently just an idea.
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And we don't know exactly what's the best way to achieve this.
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Okay, I'm very curious to learn how this will go.
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And very curious to see how all of those activities with FSFE local group will continue
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because I find this that you're like one of the most active groups that are in the Free Software local group area.
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Like we do have a lot of active groups as well.
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But yeah, you are, you are, I have sicked out to me over the years as well.
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Because you keep doing things and you keep coming up with new ideas.
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I find this very, very fascinating.
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Thank you.
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But you're not only part of the FSFE local group as we have already said, you're also part of GL.
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And are you not also the founder of GL?
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No, so again, GL is the abbreviation that we use just in this podcast episode for GNU Linux CR or GNU slash Linux dot CH.
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You see, GL is much easier.
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And it was not founded by me, but by Leo Muller again in May 2020.
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And I don't know if you remember there was this block or this web page called pollinux.de.
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No, I don't remember.
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They provided Linux news over a period of almost 20 years.
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And in 2020, they came to an end.
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And we wanted to fill the gap.
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And in the beginning, GL was a news block about Free Software.
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And in summer 2020, I added the podcast or a podcast to offer another format to this news portal.
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And then we soon realized that there was some duplication because there was another portal, which is called Linux news.de.
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And they offered similar content.
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So we had two German portals, which tried to fill the gap of the deprecated pollinux.de portal.
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So GNU Linux.de and Linux news.de.
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And we then established a partnership in which Linux news focused on news and GL presents magazine content.
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And we are proud to collaborate with other providers and are delighted to be able to offer the largest range of Free Software
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and free society content in the German speaking world.
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And our podcast has also changed over time.
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So at the beginning, it was a monthly news format with the length of two hours, one or two hours per episode.
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And it was called GNU Linux news that was the name of the first podcast.
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And with the introduction of Captain, it's Wednesday.
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We now publish weekly episodes lasting about 30 minutes or longer.
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And the podcast is interesting because it features a variety of speakers and offers a wide range of topics like talking with you.
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Thank you.
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But what is the aim of GNU Linux?
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They are like GL and how can others participate or who is participating because you mentioned it's a bit of a magazine content.
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Are you all writing this all by yourself or can others from outside also contribute?
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Yeah, so I think that the selection of topics is very important to us.
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So we break out of this nerdy niche by describing Free Software in the context of a free society.
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So there can be no free society if people are not given the opportunity to participate.
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And that is why GL is a project by the community for the community.
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So this offering has been very safe.
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So our articles have been written by over 220 authors.
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And in the podcast, we have over 100 speakers that had the opportunity to explain the views.
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So normally if you have a podcast or a blog or a web sign, so a magazine like a thing on the internet, then that's normally operated by a few people, especially if you think about a podcast.
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I mean, you have the software freedom podcast.
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And no, that's not a good example because you always have guests.
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But if you think about other big podcasts like Lagerde Nation or methodically incorrect or things like this, you have always the same.
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Like Linux and Linux.
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But Linux and Lagerde also have.
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Yeah.
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Okay, so, but at, at, Ludinux, CERA or the captain, it's when says pot stay, it's part of the concept.
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So that it's a place for the community to express themselves.
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So and therefore, I'm always very happy to have people from the community talking with me in the podcast and having a lot of.
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Volunteer authors writing articles for the magazine or for the.
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Do you have to review them like each article that was submitted by one of the 220 authors that you have?
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So there is a kind of an organization.
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So we have a core team, which consists of six people.
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Then we have a.
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How is this called in English and editorial reduction?
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Yeah, that.
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So a news desk or with 30 people.
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And then we have a matrix talk room with 850 people and the help team with 570 people.
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So it's, it's a kind of a hierarchy.
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And which is also a kind of self-regulated community, especially if we talk about moderation of social media content and also review of articles, which is normally done by the.
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30 people in the editorial team.
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Yeah, that's roughly how this is organized.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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And I also want to emphasize that GL is non commercial and transparent, especially when it comes to our finances.
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Every year we publish a transparency report in January, in which we disclose our transactions.
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And GL is as fine as by donations and sponsors and our income issues exclusively to cover our costs.
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So no one on the teams that I mentioned receives a cent of our income.
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So all this involved work is on a voluntary basis.
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And that's very important for us to avoid any kind of corruption.
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Or how is this called in influencership or something like this?
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Yeah.
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Wow.
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This is like quite a lot of effort from volunteers there.
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Do you also like do something together?
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Do you have a team meeting at some point or how do you like keep the spirit there?
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And how do you keep the people motivated?
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So we are counting.
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We have some interruptions in the recording.
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But I guess you ask how we organize this and if we have team meetings.
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Yes.
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So in the core team, we just had made of six people.
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We have monthly core calls where we make the decisions and develop new ideas.
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Are most of the people from Switzerland or are they from all over the world?
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No.
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We have this normal ratio of one to ten.
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So you know this one to ten ratio?
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No, I don't.
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If you talk about Germany and Austria or Germany and Switzerland, you have always a one to ten ratio.
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Yes.
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So that means ten people are from Germany and one person are either from Austria or from Switzerland.
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Oh God.
37:51.000 --> 37:52.000
Okay.
37:52.000 --> 37:54.000
I have never heard of this.
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Yeah, that's a very good rule of thumb.
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And also if you look at the donations and contributions, it's always this factor of or this ratio of one to ten.
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Okay.
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I need to pay closer attention now to who is actually writing something to figure this out and to keep this up.
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Because usually I find like, oh, this reads interesting.
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I will read that so I don't pay that much attention to the author.
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But I should probably do that more to figure out how this is going there.
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So from my last questions, yeah, so that we wrap it all up.
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I wanted to ask you also a bit more about digital policy in Switzerland.
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So can you give me a bit of an overview of the current situation for Free Software?
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Because I guess or I know that there's also some topics related to this floating around and also discussed on GNU Linux,
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GNU Sashline of such CHGL.
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So yeah, very curious to learn more about that.
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Yeah, I'm sorry, Bonnie, but you are wrong because I'm not an expert on digital policy.
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Of course, I keep an eye on developments, but I don't presume to make any relevant statements about them.
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So there are other people who are much better at that, for example, Kierre from the Digital Society of Switzerland.
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I don't know, do you know Eric? Kierre?
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I have never met him in person, but I know the Kierre because they are also part of the House Communication Congress.
39:44.000 --> 39:52.000
And another very well-informed person is Matthias Stormer from Paul DiGi.
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And Paul DiGi is a kind of paleo mental group that spreads political parties.
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And they are standing in for digital topics in the parliament.
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So you will also find the links in the show notes.
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Yeah, I know we will put them in there.
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But from the latest news regarding digital policies in Switzerland, I still gather there is a lot happening in this regard.
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And Free Software is becoming more of a topic.
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Or how is your perception of this?
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And do you see a movement towards more false products in public administrations there?
40:53.000 --> 40:59.000
Yes, something is indeed happening in Switzerland, and not only in Switzerland, but also in Europe.
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And you know it very well, Bonnie.
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I think with the decline of former democracies, many authorities, organizations and companies have realized that they need to take digitalization into their own hands.
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So in Switzerland, we have, let's say, a new association or initiative, which is called Netswerk SDS.
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If I want to translate this, it's called Netswerk SDS in digital Switzerland.
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That's an interest group that hundreds have rapidly joined.
41:34.000 --> 41:47.000
So you have, you find their federal authorities, courts, large companies and civil society organizations, they get all gather information there.
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And in addition to information and participatory exchange, this network offers three test installations of open desk.
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Do you know what open desk is?
42:00.000 --> 42:02.000
Yes, open desk.
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So open desk is a free office, a platform from the German company, Sendis, which is funded by the government, by the German government.
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And regarding this network SDS, Matthias Stürmer, which I mentioned before, is a founder of this network.
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And I recently recorded an interview with him.
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And as you can imagine, you will find the link in the show notes.
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Yes. We keep repeating that.
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Okay. So this sounds very interesting. Like, there is something happening there.
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And yeah, I'm very much looking forward to follow up on this and to see what's happening.
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One last question about Kira from Digital Gesellschaft. Is Kira also Eric Schönberger?
42:53.000 --> 42:54.000
Exactly.
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Yeah, Eric, I know.
42:56.000 --> 43:04.000
You know, if you take his first name, Eric, and then you turn it around, what is it?
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It's Kira. Yeah, that's all I know.
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Because I was like, okay, this can't be a real name. So I was like, maybe, maybe it's the other way.
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Now it all makes sense to me as well.
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But my last question arrived because we already have quite a long time.
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We have already talked quite a long time now.
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So for my last question, is there something our listeners can do to support Free Software in Switzerland?
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Yes, of course.
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And I think this question should not be limited to Switzerland because it should apply to all democratic states
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and in particular to their citizens to Free Software knows no national borders.
43:47.000 --> 43:52.000
We are a global movement that advocates for Free Software and free society.
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So everyone can and should get involved because this movement works for people in the best sense of the world.
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Digital freedom affects everyone, so no matter which country they live in.
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And digital freedom is essential for societies because it has an increasing impact on our lives every day.
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So what can you do?
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I recently read a scientific study that has investigated this.
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See the link in the show notes.
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This study concludes that connecting with like-minded people can have the strongest political average.
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That's why I don't recommend social media bubbles but real life meetings.
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So meet up in person and form kind of peaceful communities to make positive contributions to society.
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So and if you're lucky, you might even make new friends along the way.
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That's a perfect sentence. I will leave that as the closing sentence.
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Thank you so much for the time. Thank you so much for being here.
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And thank you so much for taking me through all the activities of the FSFE local group in Zurich,
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of Gnu Linux, Sihar. Thank you so much. It was a real pleasure.
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Yeah, it was very nice to talk with you again, Bonnie. I'm happy.
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Perfect. This was the software freedom podcast.
45:23.000 --> 45:29.000
If you liked this episode, please recommend it to your friends and rate it.
45:29.000 --> 45:34.000
Stay tuned for more inspiring conversations that explorate importance of software freedom
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and its impact on our digital lives.
45:37.000 --> 45:41.000
This podcast is presented to you by the Free Software foundation Europe.
45:41.000 --> 45:46.000
We are a charity that empowers users to control technology.
45:46.000 --> 45:52.000
If you like our work, please consider supporting us with a nation.
45:52.000 --> 45:57.000
You find more information on the FSFE.org slash donate.
45:57.000 --> 46:00.000
Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much. Bye bye.
46:00.000 --> 46:01.000
Bye bye.
Back to the episode SFP#49