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Read and share online: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/thank-you-for-being-a-part-of-our-35th-birthday-celebration

Dear Ruben Safir,

While the Free Software Foundation’s (FSF’s) actual thirty-fifth
birthday passed relatively quietly last Sunday, our birthday week was
action-packed. We started with a request for birthday videos and
donations, then the unveiling of the gorgeous thirty-fifth
birthday designs by David Revoy, followed by the announcement of
the program for the birthday celebration and a sleek new
responsive homepage design, and finally, we introduced our new
educational video, Rewind.

On Friday, October 9, we topped off the week with an online gala
celebration that provided a broad overview of the past, present, and
plans for the future of our ambitious social movement, with luminaries
both old and new offering their views and insights. And of course,
since in-person gatherings in the era of COVID-19 are still unwise,
this celebration enjoyed all of the advantages that online-only events
can only experience with free software, including Jitsi Meet,
BigBlueButton, and IRC.

We started the day with a brief, informal introduction from FSF
program manager Zoë Kooyman and campaigns manager Greg Farough, with a
reminder about our safe space policy, a brief overview of the
day’s program, and a bit of technical troubleshooting.

Next, we viewed a prerecorded message from the FSF’s president,
Geoffrey Knauth, who delivered an informal but deeply personal talk
from a very fitting place: an airplane hangar, where the late and
well-loved former FSF board member Bob Chassell, helped him learn
how to stick to a tight budget as a pilot. He covered a wide range of
topics, including how he came to be involved with GNU and the FSF, the
importance of treating each other well and valuing diversity, and his
vision for the FSF moving forward -- peppered with engaging stories of
competitive rowing and world travels.

Next, we welcomed the incredibly talented illustrator and artist David
Revoy, who created the beautiful designs commemorating our “coral
anniversary.” David’s live talk, streamed in from France, was run as a
conversation with Zoë and Greg, and they discussed the tools David
uses, his preference for Krita as a free software design program (you
can see his introduction to Krita from the LibrePlanet 2020 conference
on our MediaGoblin page), and the free software community in
France. He finished the discussion with an explanation of how he
produced the “free software reef” -- and, by the way, thank you to
everyone for your enthusiasm for the thirty-fifth anniversary T-shirt,
poster, and pin! We’ve actually sold out of the shirts, but will be
printing and selling more, so keep an eye out.

At 13:15, we introduced some of the wonderful tribute videos submitted
by free software community members from all over the world. Electronic
Frontier Foundation (EFF) luminary and past LibrePlanet keynote Cory
Doctorow kicked off the videos, declaring that there has never been a
moment in which software freedom has been more important to
humanity. Other speakers included Frédéric Couchet and Étienne Gonnu
from April, Alex from Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), and
Özcan O?uz and Alper Atmaca from Free Software Association Turkey.

The next presentation featured some more FSF friends from France:
Pouhiou from Framasoft, and Eda Nano, board member of
April and member of La Quadrature Du Net. After a brief
introduction, the conversation dove into an enthusiastic discussion of
PeerTube, which, Pouhiou emphasizes, was not designed to be a
direct competitor to YouTube: PeerTube is better! While Framasoft has
vanishingly small resources compared to Google, “We can do things
better because we don’t have that business model,” Pouhiou said. “We
don’t have to keep a monopoly to ourselves...We want to free people!”

PeerTube users can share their creative videos and enjoy watching a
vast video library without being controlled by a megacorporation, and
users are empowered to view and create videos exactly as they wish,
rather than in a way that advertisers have deemed most advantageous to
their bottom line.

Eda also introduced us to the CHATONS initiative, or “KITTENS,”
which is a collective of independent, transparent, neutral, and
ethical hosters providing free software-based online services,
initiated by Framasoft. We encourage you to explore how these
mischievous but very helpful KITTENS will help you “de-Google-ify” the
Internet and your life!

Next, we presented a prerecorded video message from FSF and GNU
founder Richard Stallman (RMS), who launched into a brief sketch of
the history of the free software movement, before talking about the
urgency of our task in the here and now. He talked about how, in the
past, software was simpler and less embedded in daily life, but today,
in the era of smartphones, videoconferencing, and COVID-19, many
important activities are nearly impossible without submitting to the
abuses of nonfree software. He emphasized that he is standing firm
against this pressure, and implored everyone to say no to it as often
as they can.

In the next segment, we brought in our copyright and licensing
associate, Craig Topham, to emcee a fun free software history trivia
quiz! Proud winners Adfeno, Frédéric Couchet (of April), Nicolas
Dandrimont, and David "plasma41_" Paul won a $200 gift certificate
that they can spend on Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certified gear from
Vikings, a custom bundle of fun items from the GNU Press Shop, a
Vikings WNDR3800 WLAN home router, and a three-year JMP.chat gift
voucher.

The next thirty-fifth birthday presentation went truly global, with a
busy panel of participants from free software activist groups all over
the world! Founding, running, and expanding local free software
organizations is a crucial activity for the proliferation of free
software and success of the movement, so we were delighted to welcome:

• Italo Vignoli, perennial LibrePlanet conference presenter and
  co-founder of LibreOffice, from Milan, Italy;




• Bonnie Mehring, junior project manager at FSFE, in Germany;




• Lioh Moeller and Gian Maria Daffré, FSFE's country coordinators for
  Switzerland;




• Cristina, a law student and free software organizer from Buenos
  Aires, Argentina; and




• Roberto Beltran, founder of LibreMiami, in Florida.

All of the participants talked about initiatives they have used to
engage free software activists and draw more people into their work,
and some challenges they’ve encountered along the way. At the end of
the presentation, FSF campaigns manager Greg Farough reiterated the
FSF’s support for local groups, and announced that, once we are safe
to organize in person events again, we will be able to offer groups a
limited amount of financial aid to help motivate new organizers and
boost existing groups. Details for our new reimbursement program will
be forthcoming soon, and we’re still planning criteria, so if you want
to participate in this process, please contact us at
campaigns@fsf.org.

Finally, we had a prerecorded talk from FSF executive director John
Sullivan, who spoke from his home in North Carolina, wearing a shirt
from our last big anniversary celebration, FSF30! John is the most
senior member of the current FSF staff, having gotten his start over
17 years ago, and expressed his deep gratitude to everyone for
sticking with the FSF through all the ups and downs in those years. He
emphasized how the need for software freedom is central to many of the
biggest issues we all face today, from the threat of bulk surveillance
to the defense of democracy, and urged viewers to help make sure all
software is free before we meet again in another 35 years.

John also reviewed some of the successes of the last year, especially
the leaps forward that the FSF has made in the last six months:
switching the LibrePlanet 2020 conference over the course of a
mere week from an in-person to fully online conference, using only
free software; launching a Jitsi Meet instance for FSF members to do
videoconferencing; the HACKERS and HOSPITALS initiative, and
more. There are also exciting plans for the future, including an
update to our High Priority Projects list; a free software
forge, which will enable software collaboration with full freedom;
more RYF certifications; and reinforcement of the use and promotion of
copyleft licensing. We can’t wait to share all of these projects with
you -- please keep an eye on our blogs and social media for next
steps.

The day closed with more videos from supporters, including FSFE
president Matthias Kirschner. We wrapped up with more closing notes
from Zoë and Greg, and then as quickly as it began, the party had
ended.

I think it’s fair to say I speak for all of us when I say that we’re
so grateful for the outpouring of support from the free software
community, from all of the speakers on the stream to the hundreds of
viewers and participants on IRC. FSF staff can feel very siloed in our
work (and, since COVID, in our homes), and our days of sending out
missives on the importance of software freedom into the world often
pass without a full sense of who is listening, or how people feel
about what we do.

I can’t express enough how beautiful it is to see the faces and hear
the voices of the people who are most deeply invested in our project,
and how much we appreciate your idealism and commitment. After 35
years, in many ways, we’re only just getting started, as the
technological landscape endlessly shifts and new threats -- and
opportunities -- emerge. We pledge to match your commitment, and if
today is any indication, along with all of the hard work, there is
plenty of joy and fun to be had along the way to our goal: a world
where all software is free, forever.

In solidarity,

Dana Morgenstein

Outreach and Communications Coordinator