Episode: 4186
Title: HPR4186: How to get started with Software Freedom Day?
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4186/hpr4186.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 21:01:13

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4186 from Monday the 19th of August 2024.
Today's show is entitled, How to Get Started with Software Freedom Day.
It is hosted by Troller Coaster and is about 33 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is Sam asks how to get started with Organizing Software Freedom Day.
Hi Sam.
So a while ago you asked me about Software Freedom Day and how you would get started on
Organizing Software Freedom Day in Cheltenham, UK where you live because you don't have
any experience with this and my idea was let's just have a talk about this and record
it.
Maybe other people on Hacker Public Radio might also be inspired to just organize something
in their area.
So first off, who am I?
I'm Morgan.
I've been recently, I've recently stepped up to become a volunteer at the board of the
Digital Freedom Foundation, the organization Organizing Software Freedom Day.
And I've been Organizing Software Freedom Day myself in Brussels in our Hacker Space
since 2011.
So in the beginning it was very small and every now and then it got a little bit bigger
but overall it's a rather small event.
It's fun.
Bigger movements like in Portugal or in Iran or in Brazil have really big, big, big
events around Software Freedom Day and I probably forgot other ones to sorry people.
But your question was how would you get started with Organizing Software Freedom Day?
So for me the first question is how do you picture the story of Software Freedom Day
in your life, in your context?
If you can tell me that, we can go from there.
Yeah, sure.
So I run a website called Ethical Revolution which I've not been doing for quite as long
as you've been involved in Software Freedom Day.
It was 2013 that I set up Ethical Revolution so it's just about to have its 11th birthday
actually.
But yeah, within that it's evolved over time but right now there are sort of 26 steps
for me to say that people can take from all positive future and one of those steps
is to opt for open source, free and open source software and then there are a few other
steps which are to get rid of various social media platforms to get rid of Google and again
it's to the recommendations are to exchange for free software.
So my interest within Ethical Revolution is that and my background is kind of loosely
in tech I suppose.
I mean, I used to make websites for other people before I sold it on Ethical Revolution.
So I've been trying to move from all the bad practices of using Google and all sorts
over time.
And in fact I have been doing it for quite a while and I noticed my first sign up to
Diaspora that was like when I set up Ethical Revolution so and I've been using, well I
used LibreOffice now but I used to use OpenOffice you know that was quite a long time ago when
I started using that but now I'm really trying to make sure that everything I use you know
down to my, the music software I recently installed Linux and Linux and I've got Ardu on
there.
Yeah so I'm just personally trying to do as much as I can that way but then I want to
spread the message as well so yeah that's my, that's where I'm at.
That's cool.
So if you're going to be organizing software free then what do you expect software free
then they do to be?
Yeah well I mean I've looked into software free then day what do I want it to be for
me is the question yeah that I think I want to ask you really so I found out about document
freedom day was that earlier this year or towards the back end of last year I can't remember
now within the last year and online I just tried to promote that a little bit and I want
I'd like to do software free in day as well but you've showed the importance of actually
having a physical presence rather than just promoting it online which I think would be
important so I think I want to find out from you how I can do it being someone who's
not as tech minded as you are I don't have all the knowledge that you have but I know
you've got the resources but then there's things like where I'm going to do it how much
effort it's going to take the costs and that sort of thing so I'd like to try and iron
that sort of thing out with you.
Okay let me first pick up on that question important for me is that software free in day at
least also has a physical leg so that people really meet each other I think that's so important
because if people meet each other they you can look each other in the eye you can give
each other a hug you can punch someone on the shoulder if you think he's telling stuff
that's not real I mean do whatever is culturally appropriate meet people have fun do what
people are good at build friendships that's what makes a society stronger to that's what
makes us resilient there's also a slightly darker side not sure if I want to get into that
too much but if you're if you want to be sure that you're not talking to or listening to
an AI I think the only way kind is if you physically meet the person but maybe that's my
tinfoil hat let's not get into those weeds too much meeting people is fun more fun than having
a video call of course the video calls open open limitations I mean the fact that we're we're
talking to each other now it's because we're having a video call and because I couldn't hop
on my bike from Brussels to Cheltenham it was Cheltenham right it's near Cheltenham yeah I lost
this year in the UK but just just how much how do I know that you're not an AI then
yeah well basically you don't I can show my hands I have five fingers
usually that works you could ask me some odd questions and maybe I'll give the right answers
if you get you know me a bit better you'll see more awkward things so it's a good thing if you
know each other but given that AI is getting better and better getting more skilled at impersonating
people it will become increasingly hard but let's not get into the paranoia corner too much let's
accept that AI is a thing it's not going away has its benefits has its risks we'll just have to
organize more physical meetings with people where we live with people from those areas and that
that is exactly where I want to head to with some sort of freedom day more and more people
if you're going to suffer freedom day also choose to record or even live stream their talks
now that's nice that's fun that's interesting because then again you can reach more people be it
afterwards be it longer distances but some people don't and this can be for several reasons so
you could choose not to record or live stream talks because this because some speakers feel uncertain
when they are recorded other ones just say if you're not here sorry you missed that on the party
it's fair point and maybe it's just a technical hurdle that because it adds a lot it adds some
complexity to to the event if you have to try to put a camera put a microphone have the people
the person speaking the microphone it adds complexity so if you choose not to do it for whatever reason
just as fine but you were asking me about the logistics of organizing stuff for freedom day
and well when I was looking into the archives I found an example where a group somewhere in the
beginning of previous decade not sure where or when anymore but they just made a big banner
and walked on the street handed out CDs and flyers about suffer freedom day holding a few balloons
with a logo on it that they had from from the shripeg that was as simple as it gets five people
handing out flyers and CDs they didn't even have a venue or a computer on them that's that's the
most basic form of suffer freedom day that I could find and these people had a lot of fun so it
was a social event but then if I look back at my personal first event I was member of the hackers
space and I was lucky because I already had a venue I could use and they shared my values so I
didn't have to convince them about the the ideals and that was a good head start so if I really had
some some place to go but I'm also aware that not every venue is as willing to share their location
with some obscure group that they haven't heard of to talk about some ideology because in the end
we are still an ideology we have an ideal and people agree some disagree so there can be conflicts
here and but as far as those conflicts go I tend to prefer talking about suffer freedom day
in positive sense so let's focus on the benefits of using free software the power of the software
how good it works how mature it is how user friendly it is how privacy respecting it is
so with that positive mindset you could get into libraries or public spaces if you have kids
going to school you could ask the school if they could use if you could use a classroom during the
weekend well you could also look into nerdier spaces you could not only go to hackers spaces
Linux user groups of course but maybe there's a philosophy club in the area or discussion group
debating club whatever if you could go to just go to a pub and ask what's their most quiet
evening and offer to have an event on that evening where the people will buy their underings
and just have suffer freedom day then on a Thursday evening or Wednesday evening or some other
evening it's also an idea so for as for venues those were a few options I think you can also imagine
other options don't let your creativity be your limit then another often asked question is content
content wise what could we do on software freedom day well I already gave you the most simple
example of walking around in the street handing out flyers the next level is where you just
invite a few people over have a talk a discussion maybe with three four five fifteen people
and exchange ideas what do you think is important in a text editor what do you use to maintain your
contacts and how are they stored where where are your documents who has access to them is this okay
for you what what would would be missing and even maybe give them a small demo of how you use
Libre office in your environment that's just an example you can grow even a little bit bigger
than if you if you want and then you can have invite some people over from the local groups technical
groups give them have them give a talk about a software freedom event or a software freedom project
that they're working on you could if you could figure out some free software developer living
in your areas you could surprise them with music and a breakfast and a trumpet serenade just
not your creativity beer guide here of course there's also the more bigger events where you could
have talks and you could have workshops but those are quite quite predictable I mean there are
smaller things there are more creative things that you can do have a look on our website digital
freedoms.org there are some ideas there too even see crazy ideas a good starting point for a talk
or a discussion or an exchange of ideas could be on the website of the free software foundation
they have a cool approach where they have like a ladder with seven steps of freedom and
so as they explain if you can step start on the first step and then you do these things second
step you can do these things and this way you gradually grow in freedom. It's a bit similar to
your alphabet approach where you also have like 26 steps to take to free yourself but the
FSF kind of puts them in a hierarchy so these are low hanging fruits and these are the next steps
and it builds up it's similar but different both approaches have something to say for it
yeah that's I kind of like both approaches so see what works for you and it can help you to get
yourself a little bit more free so they then add to your questions. I think that's yeah good answer
I think I've probably got a question in response to that one thing I didn't mention as well
I forgot to mention at the start was that I'd like to put this sort of event on but I know I'm
useless at speaking in front of crowds of people that's just something after phobia I seem to have
but the idea of having a few people around a table that's fine that's not daunting for me so
so that's a really good idea I think yeah and then one thing it's something I struggle with
not just with the tech stuff you know just trying to change people's behaviors I can imagine
even you know focusing on the positives whatever I might speak to someone in the village
they might come along to the talk or whatever find out some info but then they might say for example
well I've got Microsoft Word why should I use Libre
pad instead or whatever so I get that I can present these ideas and present why they're better
but then actually getting people to change their behaviors finding that the thing I don't know
if that's something you can touch on well actually there are two things that are quite important
one you can only talk about what you find valuable be humble be modest be yourself don't try to
represent the world just talk about what you think is important what you think is valuable
and explain how the things you use actually fulfill these values and that's first thing
second thing I am personally quite reluctant talking shit about other companies
about how bad or how evil somebody is that's not my tone of voice and also I do believe if you
tell someone that the program they love that they use is bad or evil then they will be they
will feel offended they will feel insulted in it in a way because you actually question their
values their things that they have been finding important and have been using now at this point
I have to do two things first I have to get over their aversion about being questioned in their
values about being called user of bad software user of evil things and once I get over this
negativity only at this point I can talk start talking about what I actually find valuable
so if I just skip this whole part I don't insult this people with telling them how they use
wrong software I don't do this I don't touch it I maybe maybe it isn't isn't the wrong software
who am I to judge but what I do is I talk what about the things I find valuable I try to battles
I try to plan some seats and explain why I really like to use Libra Office why I prefer Firefox
why I chose for Linux and I just explain why you use order okay it will have some trade-offs
but it also has some benefits and while these may not always be practical they are certainly
ethical and you can then just raise attention to the fact that these are also relevant
now at this point often my talk gets a bit a bit heavy a bit serious so at this point I often
start sharing an example one example coming to mind it was 1998 maybe 2001 I don't remember exactly
I'm 50 years old it happens and I actually bought a few office suites a few versions of Microsoft
office back then and one of the things I loved about it was that out outlook had an agenda
and if you if you ran this on my I think it was a my psion agenda it could connect with it
and I could have this thingy make noise every every time I had a meeting in 10 minutes because I
have a very distracted brain and I forget everything it's the problem now it was a problem 30 years ago
things don't change anyway I had this great agenda and it made noise for me
but back then it was really it was an expensive gimmick and I often had to
walk into into families visit people where who really didn't have a lot of income who lived in
poverty and I didn't want to be that snob with with with with the fancy gimmick to tap into my agenda
stuff so I printed my my agenda as booklets and this feature I loved this feature how outlook
allowed me to print a booklet per month so I had my booklet for August, September, October,
November, etc and I could just write in and then in the evening I typed on my computer I just
transferred my my events that I added for that day into my electronic agenda and everything was
fine again and every other month I printed a new booklet and everything kept it kind of worked
that way for me so I liked that and then came the next version of MS Office and they had some
cool features so I paid for it again so I think I had paid like 300 and another 200 euros for my
office suite quite some money installed office XP I did all the steps and hoops because I was
quite technical so I knew how to do this and the installed it was easy but I couldn't find how
I could print my booklet agendas so I called the Microsoft support because I was a paying
customer so I had I could call them and I got brought from one person to the other and in the end
they could tell me that the feature was scrapped from from MS Office because there wasn't enough
use for it okay so they decided I didn't need that and yeah that's the priority they set so
then I have to live with that and that's then a few months later a smaller company came out
with a plugin or an extension I don't remember how it worked that allowed me to print my agenda
as a booklet and I had I had to pay another 50 euros for for that plugin or other application
and then I could you do my favorite thing again and everything everything was piece again so with
this example I can then explain how actually I mean Microsoft wasn't evil they were just
following their own business logic and what's what what what's their business logic they have to
respond to shareholders to the stock market to the economics and those with their priorities so
which features deliver for them the best income the best revenue and the feature of this
printable agenda was a small example of something that cost them money more than a generated
generated revenue or users so they scrapped it because it made it made it cheaper for them to
maintain and yeah it influenced they decided in my place how what my priority should be had I
been using Thunderbird then I could have made a few different decisions I could have rolled back
to the previous version of Thunderbird if they had scrapped this functionality I could have
developed it myself if if I wanted to go that road and do some programming or if I had the skills
but I could also have paid somebody to implement this or to create this plugin or this feature and
then I could give it back to the community and everybody had this feature not just me so that was
that's how I use this example to explain how it's not about being good or evil or being
malicious or being no it's it's about how they have their own priorities and those priorities aren't
necessarily mine and this way I try to plant some consciousness in the heads of people and I hope
that as a given moment when they come to a point where they have to buy new software by a new
computer or second hand computer in my often in my case if they if they go to get get another computer
they actually think about these criteria about these priorities and if they consider buying the
same software that they at least question these priorities that they at least question are these
features in there and how do you safeguard that I'm the priority and maybe they will end up with
with the conclusion that LibreOffice is perfect for them they don't have to pay that extra few
hundred dollars or euros for that new fancy software they can just get the free alternatives
or maybe they they're not ready to make the jump yet but that's not my decision to make
but at least I know something is growing in their mind and they know they can come to me if they
have questions if they have doubts if they want to consider moving to that new software so I hope
that was some kind of an answer to your question definitely yeah and even those who don't like
who don't think about it immediately the seed is there isn't it and they might have been
completely unaware that there was any difference you know most people aren't aware that there's
any difference so at least it's a small yeah a first step into the path yeah well and there's
one thing I would like to come back on that you started that you talked about a few minutes ago
about not feeling confident about speaking in public or for groups I think a lot of people have
this where they don't feel important enough not skilled enough I mean who am I that I should be
explaining you about anything I'm not an expert I'm not a smart guy I just use the software I just
do my things and yeah okay yeah so maybe you said that you feel comfortable talking around
the table table size audience like a few people around the table maybe you could look for
something more in the format of a fancy fair or a marketplace where multiple people populate
different stands so you have a few tables spread over a classroom or in a hallway and people just
walk around from one table to the other and then one table could just have a few computers in a small
network allowing kids to play tax racer against each other without the need of some proprietary
server in a cloud and then you have another table showing people creating artwork in Crita or
Blender or Inkscape maybe even refer them to the Huion challenge where people can submit their
own artwork and win a graphic tablet a third table could be about ethical revolution and the
movement and here's you or somebody could explain about how your choice of software also
impacts your ethics and because I don't think people are aware that
that your software choice is also an ethical choice and just raise that idea plant that seed
you talked about how you've been using order to record your music well give a demo of that I
mean it's completely inside of your comfort zone it's a very advanced tool and it's very visual
I mean you you have you have like a band set up you have a computer showing all the the bouncy
lines you have you have all this kind of stuff and you can demonstrate that you don't need to buy
hundreds of dollars of software to do this that it's free to use in whatever way you want and
this setup allows people to have fun they see cool stuff it's very visual and when they can go home
having like a good taste of free software and how this this thing can can work for you
maybe this could work too definitely yeah that sounds good I need to get out of a few more
computers but I'm sure I could do that so for my situation I did find a venue which I thought
would be good which is in Cheltenham as you mentioned I live in a village actually outside Cheltenum
and it turned out they've got an autumn fair on on the 21st of September which is the same date
so here the recording got cut off but Sam also talked that about how this this event
in the end wasn't the perfect place anyway because of practical reasons and he also had some
family matters that intervened so he wasn't available that day of the 21st of September itself
and that actually I'd like to bring on two topics first off
hijacking or jumping into an existing event actually is a good idea in itself
I mean there is a lot of people already they're already these people will not be the most
technical audience probably because it's a it's a local local event so don't get too nerdy in the
topic sure giving I mean don't go giving a workshop on software defined radio but here the
the whole concept of having your stand and talking about this stuff is very interesting
especially if you go entry level here you are limited because as I understood
from the part of your explanation that got cut off is that you had to pay per table so here
it's also going to depend on how much table space you get and you could put a tip jar if you
have something like that just to get out of the costs but so using an existing event is a good idea
because it allows you to actually reach new people and not always get the same
interrupt that you're used to having over but I also want to get back on the fact that you have
a family event on September 21st on software freedom day and here I think well I like to
compare software freedom day with with the birthday party so if your birthday is September 21st
then often for different reasons you will put the birthday party a few days later maybe a week
later even depending on logistical practical reasons maybe your best friends are not available
or it's weekend or it's a religious holiday whatever the reason is if this reason makes that
your audience that you would like to see isn't available then it makes perfectly perfect sense to
move your birthday party or your software freedom day party a little bit into the past or into
the future and just celebrate it on another day and just like with the birthday party the
further you move away of course the more it gets abstracted and it's not that party anymore I mean
if your birthday is September 21st and you have the party in March that's not a birthday party anymore
but basically just move the date a little bit and have your software freedom day party on a different
moment somewhere around that date makes perfect sense to me so I understood that you had like
the opportunity to get another place so I'm really looking forward to hearing from you to see your
events maybe see some pictures or some videos or some recordings afterwards and I hope to
that you have a good time that you meet new people that you have interesting discussions and talks
and yeah and thank you for jumping into the the challenge of putting this online and having this
go to yeah to the hacker public radio audience too because this one is really made for them
so now I'm talking to the audience I'm I've heard from from Ken that they're like around
a hundred thousand people listening to this podcast so if a half a percent of you organize
software freedom day somewhere in the world and another half percent actually visit software
freedom day somewhere that would be a really nice audience so at this point I'm challenging you all
have software freedom day somewhere in your neck of the woods and just do it I mean it doesn't
have to be big you can just take five people go on the streets and talk about it or have a small party
or a flash mob or go celebrate surprise breakfast for your favorite software developer who lives
around on on on the corner just do anything celebrate software freedom day come to digital freedoms
dot org slash sfd and register your events and have a great time it will be fun looking forward
to see all your hundreds and thousands of software freedom day events going on all over the world
I'm sure you will do it you have been listening to hacker public radio at hacker public radio does
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