Tobias Diekershoff, FSFE’s System Hacker and core developer of the Friendica project, along with Michael Vogel, also a core member of the Friendica development team, provide an concise introduction to Friendica in this talk.

Friendica has been part of the Fediverse since 2010, building bridges between Laconica and Diaspora*, making it one of the oldest active projects of the Fediverse - yet Friendica has flown under the radar most of the time.

In this talk we will give a short introduction to Friendica, its unique features and how it differs from other systems.

The Friendica project homepage can be found at friendi.ca, the source code for the core is maintained on github and for the addons on git.friendi.ca.

This video on FOSDEM website: https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-5289-friendica-under-the-radar-since-2010/

Zangemann est un inventeur mondialement connu et immensément riche. Enfants et adultes adorent ses fabuleuses inventions. Mais soudain, gros problème : les skateboards électroniques des enfants buggent et les glaces ont toutes le même parfum. Que se passe-t-il ?

Ada, jeune fille curieuse, va découvrir comment Zangemann contrôle ses produits depuis son ordinateur en or. Avec ses amis, elle va bricoler des objets informatisés qui échappent aux décisions de Zangemann.

How can we spark children's interest in coding and tinkering. In this talk we will present the ongoing activities of the Free Software Foundation Europe to get the next generation of Haecksen and Hackers interested in tech, with a focus on diversity.

Today it is impossible to imagine daily life without software. The majority of us can’t spend a single day without using it. People use software in the workplace, on laptops, and on mobile phones. Software is also found in less obvious places however: in trains, cars, televisions, washing-machines, fridges, and many other devices. None of these devices could function without software. Without software we couldn’t write e-mails, make phone calls, go shopping, or travel as we are accustomed to. Software is our society’s central tool. How do we ensure that the next generation is motivated and capable of shaping technology for society’s benefits?

The Free Software Foundation Europe’s volunteers and staff have interacted with over 1700 children between 6 to 10 years in the past months. Children, especially girls, afterwards were motivated to start experimenting with hardware and software. In the discussions we saw that they realise how crucial technology will be for them. The story of Ada made it into a war hospital with children with disability that felt identified with it as one of the book characters has a 3D printed leg.

Furthermore with the FSFE’s coding competition “Youth Hacking 4 Freedom” we gathered experiences working with teenagers who program, tinker, and have fun with software. YH4F has also been a place for diversity during its first three editions.

Learn more about the experiences how the FSFE sparks children’s and teenagers interest to tinker, experiment and program. Furthermore you will see how fulfilling those activities can be for yourself.

Licensed to the public under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

On Wednesday, 4 December 2024, Alexander Sander participated in the hearing on "Open Source" at the German parliament in Berlin.

Alexander Sander presented the position of the FSFE and answered the questions of the Members of the German Bundestag.

You can check out the FSFE's written opinion (in German) here: https://download.fsfe.org/policy/20241204_Bundestag_Stellungnahme_FSFE.pdf

© Deutscher Bundestag

With CRA and PLD liability rules for software have been introduced with a broad exception for Free Software. After long and intense debates individual developers and non for profit work are safeguarded. Alexander Sander sheds light on those new rules.

Already at an early stage, the FSFE argued in a hearing in the EU Parliament, for the inclusion of clear and precise exemptions for Free Software development in the legislation and for liability to be transferred to those who significantly financially benefit from it on the market.

In the future, individual developers and non-profit development of Free Software will be exempt from the CRA and the PLD. Nevertheless, the wording in both the regulations are different and a standardisation processes and guidelines are still being drawn up.

In this talk Alexander Sander discusses what this new regulation means for software freedom in future and what happens at this stage and how to be involved in implementation.

What We've Learnt From Looking At 500 Free Software Projects

The FSFE is a consortium member of the EU’s Next Generation Internet initiatives (https://fsfe.org/activities/ngi/ngi.en.html). As part of our work there over the past 6 years, we have looked at hundreds of participating Free Software projects, to assist them with their legal and licensing questions, as well as to help them become REUSE compliant.

This talk explains some simple trends in Free Software legal and licensing that we’ve observed over the years in independent Free Software projects and their developers, and how these affect aspects of the Free Software ecosystem.

CC BY-SA 4.0 - SFSCON 2024

How I applied design-thinking to re-design the Italian Free Software Community

The role of Deputy Coordinator Italy within the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) was born in 2022 out of the need of re-establishing the presence of the Foundation on the territory. I designed this three years experimental project together with the Free Software Lab of NOI Techpark with the value proposition of (re)designing the FSFE Italian Community.
The project followed a human centric approach, moving along the five core stages of design-thinking. The goal of my talk is to describe the FSFE Italy project and the design-thinking approach adopted.
The first year (Y1) served as the understanding phase: I got involved as an FSFE representative in the main communication channels used by the Free Software (FS) community on the territory. I conducted interviews with volunteers, associations’ heads and enthusiasts, took part into the main FS events organized on the territory, mapped all stakeholders (understanding-observing) and created my own point of view (POV). By the end of 2022 I had already became an established FSFE representative on the territory, having gathered inputs and ideas on how to kick off the community into year two (Y2). The goal of year two was to build on these new ideas (ideation) and put these thoughts into action (prototyping) by finding common goals and activities with the main FS associations active on the territory and signing Memorandum of Understandings, preparing the ground to test it in the third year (Y3). Guess what was the result?

CC BY-SA 4.0 - SFSCON 2024

During the summer the European Commission made the decision to stop funding Free Software projects within the Next Generation Internet initiative (NGI). This decision results in a loss of €27 million for software freedom. Since 2018, the European Commission has supported the Free Software ecosystem through NGI, that provided funding and technical assistance to Free Software projects. This decision unfortunately exposes a larger issue: that software freedom in the EU needs more stable, long-term financial support. The ease with which this funding was excluded underlines this need.

This talk shows the urgent need for sustainable, long-term financial support for Free Software to ensure Europe’s technological independence.

CC BY-SA 4.0 - SFSCON 2024

https://www.sfscon.it/talks/lets-share-our-love-for-free-software/I love Free Software Day 2025
16:4015 mins08/11/2024

We often underestimate the power of a simple Thank You. Free Software contributors do important work for our society and the “I Love Free Software Day” on 14 February is the perfect opportunity for you to express your special gratitude. Since 2010, we have celebrated this wonderful annual event with an ever-growing and diverse community. ♥

CC BY-SA 4.0 - SFSCON 2024

Our experiences and how you can contribute

Today it is impossible to imagine daily life without software. The majority of us can’t spend a single day without using it. People use software in the workplace, on laptops, and on mobile phones. Software is also found in less obvious places however: in trains, cars, televisions, washing-machines, fridges, and many other devices. None of these devices could function without software. Without software we couldn’t write e-mails, make phone calls, go shopping, or travel as we are accustomed to. Software is our society’s central tool. How do we ensure that the next generation is motivated and capable of shaping technology for society’s benefits?

The Free Software Foundation Europe’s volunteers and staff have interacted with over 1700 children between 6 to 10 years in the past months. Children, especially girls, afterwards were motivated to start experimenting with hardware and software. In the discussions we saw that they realise how crucial technology will be for them. Furthermore with the FSFE’s coding competition “Youth Hacking 4 Freedom” we gathered experiences working with teenagers who program, tinker, and have fun with software.

Learn more about the experiences how the FSFE sparks children’s and teenagers interest to tinker, experiment and program. Furthermore you will see how fulfilling those activities can be for yourself.

CC BY-SA 4.0 - SFSCON 2024

An introduction to the decentralised social network

The Fediverse is a decentralised social network. But what does that mean?
In this talk, Tobias Diekershoff gives a brief introduction to the status of the Fediverse in 2024 and how it started to evolve in 2008.

He explains the basic concepts of ActivityPub as the protocol of the Fediverse and how the use of this open protocol has enabled a diverse group of Free Software projects to build a social network of (micro) blogging, video streaming, podcasting and event organising. A network where users can share and interact with each other regardless of the platform they use.
What will be possible in the Fediverse of 2024? And how can you get started today?

CC BY-SA 4.0 - SFSCON 2024

The famous inventor Zangemann lives in a huge villa high above the city. Adults and children alike love his inventions and are desperate to have them. But then something happens: when Zangemann wants to take another close-up look at his inventions during a walk through the city, a child hits him in the shin with the skateboard. That hurts! Enraged, the inventor makes a momentous decision... The clever girl Ada sees through what is going on. Together with her friends, she forges a plan.

This animated movie tells the story of the famous inventor Zangemann and the girl Ada, a curious tinkerer. Ada begins to experiment with hardware and software, and in the process realises how crucial it is for her and others to control technology.

An Open Educational Resource that inspires children to tinker and create technology.

Find out more about this film and book at ada.fsfe.org

Copyright (c) 2024 Free Software Foundation Europe e.V.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC‑BY‑SA‑4.0) International License.
To view a copy of this license, visit: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0