hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr0983.txt

Episode: 983
Title: HPR0983: Freedom is not Free 5 - Get Involved
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0983/hpr0983.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 16:58:10

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Hello, this is Ahuka. Welcome to what is now the concluding episode in our ongoing series.
Freedom is not free. We started this some weeks back and we're now coming to the last episode.
I know this is going to cause great consternation among my many fans out there
in Hacker Public Radio land, but all good things must come to an end.
In previous episodes in this series, we looked at some of the ways that you can support free software.
There are quite a few of them. The first one we took a look at was filing bugs.
Then we took a look at helping with documentation.
It's also a very important part of supporting free software. Then we took a look at providing financial support,
which is also very important.
Now what I want to do is wrap up with what I think is in some ways the most important
in that is to just get involved.
Get involved with free software one way or another. There's so many ways you can do this
to become an activist, a supporter, a promoter of free software.
What are some of the things you can do?
Well, the first thing you could do is take a look around.
Chances are there's a local Linux users group that is in your area that you could join and get involved with.
These groups do absolutely wonderful things.
Despite what the name might suggest to you, I bet that if you get involved, you discover that they talk about things other than just Linux.
In fact, free software in general is occasionally even open hardware.
Our topics for conversation at these things.
At my Linux users group, for instance, last month we had a talk that was all about SourceForge.
SourceForge hosts a lot of free software projects.
This was something we were interested in learning more about.
It wasn't specifically Linux related.
I don't know if there are any Linux distros there, but there's a lot of free software there.
This is a good place to get involved and just learn more about what is going on.
Also, I find Linux users groups tend to be places where there's a certain amount of outreach.
I know at my lug we do twice a year install fests.
The idea of install fests started some years back when Linux was actually hard to install.
I know it's hard to believe these days, but at one point it was a little bit tricky to get Linux installed.
Actually, these days I think it's a piece of cake with the live CDs and everything.
I think it's easier to install Linux than it is to install Windows, frankly.
Most people don't really need help installing Linux, although we still do get people come by that need a little help with that.
But more often what we find now is I've got Linux installed, but I'm having trouble, particularly with sound.
For some reason, sound is just a big problem.
It's a problem for me.
I keep fighting with kabuntu over and over because it constantly wants to delete all my sound settings for reasons I have never yet figured out.
But enough of my pain.
Linux users groups are good for that.
They do community outreach of various kinds.
I think it's not unusual to find that they might be involved in working with schools, with community organizations, etc. to help them out.
That's a great place to get involved. It's right in your area.
Of course, the other benefit is you get involved with Linux users group.
You're going to meet other people who are involved with free software in various ways.
Who knows what that can lead to.
That's the first thing I would suggest. Get involved with that.
If you're a Linux user, take a look at what's your particular distro of choice, your distribution.
What are they doing?
As I mentioned before, my distro of choice is kabuntu, which is the variant of a Ubuntu that uses the KDE desktop.
I've been using it for a number of years.
As an Ubuntu variant, I'm part of the Ubuntu ecosystem.
Ubuntu has what they call local communities, generally abbreviated as locos.
I'm a member of the Michigan logo in the United States because that's where I live.
We have various activities. We do bug jams and things like that.
We get together to do beta testing.
The logo does release parties because Ubuntu puts out a new release twice a year.
We're currently looking forward to one that's going to be out in April, the 12.04 release.
There will undoubtedly be a party celebrating that.
That's something to get involved in.
Now, with a different distro, I know Fedora, for instance, has the Fedora ambassadors.
That's something you could take a look at getting involved with.
And other distros, I don't know the details for all of the other distros out there.
But certainly there are opportunities, I think, if you just check with the people who put your distro out and say,
how can I get involved, they would be more than happy to give you some ideas of things you can do.
Now, another thing you can do is you can get involved with the various conferences and events.
As I've mentioned, I'm the publicity director for Ohio Linux Fest, which is in the Midwestern part of the United States.
Fairly local to me.
And so that's something I get involved in.
There's a ton of these.
I mostly know about the ones in the United States, but there's, see, we've already had the Southern California Linux Expo known as Scale.
That was in January.
We've got Northeast Linux Fest coming up this month.
As I'm recording this, when this will go out in the Hacker Public Radio feed is another thing.
But, you know, that's coming up in March in Massachusetts.
And then, you know, going down the calendar, you've got Indiana Linux Fest that's going to happen in April.
And then you've got Southeast Linux Fest.
You've got Linux Fest Northwest.
And, of course, our Ohio Linux Fest.
And it's not just Linux.
The schedule just was published for BSD Canada with another conference that, if you were in that area, that might be something you would want to get involved in.
I can tell you that as someone who has been involved for several years now with putting on Ohio Linux Fest, that there's a lot of work involved.
Okay, if you've ever been to one of these, it's a great experience to go.
And I'm sure there are equally good ones in Europe.
I just don't know about all of them, but I've heard of things like FOSDAM and that.
But all of these events, it takes a lot of work to put them on.
And if you haven't been involved, maybe you don't realize just how much work it is, but it's a great deal of work.
In fact, I just finished writing up something for our website about all of the jobs that we're looking to fill out.
Ohio Linux is eight major positions.
So, what are some of the things we're trying to do for Ohio Linux Fest?
Well, you know, we need someone for security.
Right? Someone to take on the role of chair of the security effort.
It's not a big deal, but we do have to have some of that.
Then we need someone to work on logistics.
Make sure that all the equipment shows up where it's needed, when it's needed.
Work with the venue, things like that.
And we need volunteers to help with things like security and logistics.
But we need someone to manage our bookstore.
It's one of the things we do.
We try and provide books, particularly we want to feature books written by the people who are speaking at the event.
Because there's going to be a great demand all of a sudden.
We need people to help with our sponsors.
These are the companies that provide financial support by buying a table.
We need people to help them with getting set up.
We also need someone to work with some of the, what we call the .orgs, the various organizations.
Think about things like source forage of electronic frontier foundation and things like that.
That very often want to send representatives to our event.
We need someone to work with them.
We try and do a diversity and open source workshop every year.
And we'd like someone to take charge of that one.
And then we have an event on Friday.
We call early penguins, which is a track of talks.
We need someone to work on that.
And then the day of the event, we need people to just sort of help the speakers with various things.
Managing the bags and stuffing the bags.
Because we give a bag of swag to all the people who show up.
People to help with registration and so on.
Quite a list.
I'm sure you'll agree.
And really the point is, well, number one.
Yeah, point is, if you want to do anything of these for Ohio Linux, let me know.
I will put that in the show notes.
But really what I'm saying is, you know, wherever you are.
If you're in the Midwestern part of the United States, we'd love to hear from you.
If you're in Southern California, scale would love to hear from you.
If you're in the Pacific Northwest, Linux Fest Northwest would love to hear from you.
If you're in Toronto, BSD Canada would love to hear from you.
So, you know, really the point is, there's a lot of opportunities for people to get involved in various ways.
In helping out the free software community.
Well, there's one more that I'm going to mention.
Because we're on hacker public radio.
And one of the things you could do, if you were so inclined, is you could record a program for hacker public radio.
That's part of supporting free software too.
This is part of, you know, what I call the advocacy effort.
Help get information out there.
Just as I've recorded this whole series on things you can do to help support free software,
I don't want to leave hacker public radio out of it.
Because I think they're doing something very important.
I really admire what Ken and the other admins are doing here.
And it's an important effort.
And it turns out it's actually not that hard.
Let me tell you what I did.
I bought a microphone.
That's about it, really.
I'm recording this on Linux.
I'm using a program called Audacity.
The microphone I bought is a USB microphone that plugs into my computer.
Now, the one I got may be a little more, it wasn't terribly expensive.
It's from a company called Blue, and it's called a snowball.
I like it.
It seems to give a nice sound, and it was under $100.
I don't remember exactly what I spent, but it was under $100.
And that was it, basically, that is the only expense.
And you don't need to do that.
As Ken says, if nothing else, they've got a telephone number.
You can just call and record over the telephone if you want.
I've got the under $100 bucks to buy the microphone, so I thought I might as well do that.
But other than that, it's really not terribly hard.
And if you're interested, Ken will send you all the instructions on what needs to go on to your MP3 file.
And if you can't figure that out, God love him.
He'll do some of the production work for you.
I don't really have any problem with putting on the intro and outro music onto it
and sticking on my MP3 tags and all of that.
I don't really regret that as rocket science, but if that was something that you were just a little unsure of,
that they'd love to help with that.
So that's just some of the things to wrap this up.
Some of the things you can do, but the most important thing.
And I want to emphasize that is what we started off with.
Free software is community-supported software.
And we just need to emphasize that over and over.
Because I tell you, if you take a look around it at the various software projects,
when they lose the community support, they die.
So if this is software that's important to you, if this is software that your life would be poor if it wasn't there.
And I'm using all sorts of free software all the time.
I use Libra Office to create documents and do spreadsheets.
I've got a Linux desktop.
I'm using Audacity software to record these programs.
I use Firefox and Google Chromium to surf the web.
And Thunderbird from my mail, et cetera.
I use a lot of free software.
In fact, I scarcely need to use anything other than free software these days.
Which is really nice, because that means guess what?
I own my computer. I get to decide what goes on here.
I don't have someone saying, this is your end user license agreement.
This is what we will allow you to do.
There's no one telling me what I can or cannot do with my computer.
To me, that's important.
But my responsibility, if I enjoy all the benefits of free software, is to make a contribution back to the community.
And in this series, we've been able to look at a number of ways of doing that.
So this is Ahuka.
And I'm going to put a few links in the show notes for you.
But I think next time I'm going to come back, we're going to be talking about something a little bit different.
I've got some ideas about that as well.
So until next time, bye-bye.
This is Ahuka.
Bye-bye.