Hi all ! Here is my report about our last meeting. What do you think about that ? Would you agree to put my report on FSFE's wiki ? Don't forget to see my blog with an article about the meeting ! Enjoy ! https://www.fsfe.org/en/fellows/morant/geek_free_and_funny
see you !
Ben
The First Fellowship meeting in Zürich was a chance for everyone to get to know each other. It took place in FSFE's Zürich Office on the 18^th of July, around some peanuts, crisps, beers and other drinks.
Everybody there was very motivated and discussed about ways to contribute to spread free software..
Many people were there because they were searching for increased Free Software Activism on the political side.
We discussed about the equation free = free as a beer. It's clear that we can't promote advertising based on that. The way to use Free Software implies training costs because you change your work environment and the habits you had with proprietary software. These training costs are hidden by the “free as a beer” concept. It also misses the point of freedom. We must rather promote the “free as a speech” concept: community, freedom and reliability of open standards with the time. We spoke about how free software allows you to control your system and the negative effects of monopolies on the economical side.
We decided to get in touch with other organizations in Switzerland which also promote Free Software because we noticed that the IT-specialised press here doesn't speak much about Free Software. We though about getting in touch with the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” to show their readers that an alternative exists to proprietary software.
We agreed that the FSFE can be the handling point on the political tracks and we decided to open the next fellowship meeting in Zürich to non-fellows. There is a possibility to do this meeting on the 14^th of August with the local Ubuntu group, which is now changing into a general free software discussion group.