Again it is February 14 and again the Free Software Foundation Europe (Not to be confused with Stallman's) invites us to participate of its traditional "I Love Free Software" campaign.
The entity proposes that every February 14, people from all over the world celebrate the event, expressing their gratitude to all the people who contribute to the freedom of software
What is free software
A program is free software if users of the program have all four essential freedoms:
- The freedom to run the program however you want, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works and change it to make your calculation as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this, you can give the entire community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Let's celebrate the day of love for free software
a game day
For this year, the Free Software Foundation Europe organized a day dedicated entirely to games of Free Software that will take place on February 14, 2022 between 18:00 p.m. and 20:00 p.m. CET (Central European Time). Participants will be able to discover the backstage of the world of Free Software games and then play Veloren in real time with other event attendees afterwards. The activity required registration and is now closed, but it can be followed live. this link. The talks will then be posted on Peertube y Youtube.
The schedule of events is as follows:
18:00 – 18:05 (CET): Welcome and Introduction
18:05 – 18:25 (CET): Flare – Free/Libre Action RPG Engine by Justin Jacobs
18:25 – 18:45 (CET): Vassal – Free Software Game Engine by Joel Uckelman
18:45 – 19:05 (CET): Godot Wild Jams by Kati Baker
19:05 – 19:20 (CET): Veloren – Free Software Game by Forest Anderson
19:20 – 20:00 (CET): Game time
20:00 (CET): Closing remarks
How can we participate?
In addition to the official activities, the entity proposes others that we can carry out on our own by doing the following:
- Express your thanks: Contributors to free and open source software projects do a very hard job that is often ignored. Many times, a simple thank you can be a great incentive to keep going. As a way to help us, the FSFE offers us its image generator to share, If you want to spend a little more, you can find it in the store and send them as gifts.
- Make your love public and take the opportunity to spread free software. In addition to the aforementioned image generator, the FSFE has a page with various Graphic material and the source code to download and modify it. If you want, you can buy them already printed. There are also banners that you can insert on websites and social networks. In social networks, use the hashtag #IloveFS.
- Join a project: It doesn't matter if you're not a programmer. There are many things that can be done such as translations, creating publicity material, managing social networks, answering questions from new users. or a small financial contribution.
a moment of reflection
Free and open source software is going through a difficult time. Many heavily used projects are in the hands of developers exhausted by effort and lack of support. Large corporations are occupying more and more places in the entities in charge of governing their destiny and moving them further and further away from their original principles. On the other hand, we see those who benefit from the work of others, but do not give anything back to the community. It is a good time to think about how we can do to change this.
Last year we saw how, with the complicity of members of the community, an attempt was made to remove Richard Stallman of the original Free Software Foundation for the heinous crime of defending the presumption of innocence of Marvin Minsky. On the other hand, emblematic projects such as Firefox, our only barrier against the Google monopoly, it is in the hands of a group more interested in political activism than in developing a competitive browser.