Nature Walk Open Talk for Software Freedom Day

Software Freedom Day happens once per year where real world events take place across the globe with the aim of introducing the general public to the benefits of using high quality free (libre) open source software (FLOSS).

This year I got on board and put on an event near Cheltenham in the UK. After having spoken with Jurgen at the Digital Freedom Foundation about my apprehensions to running such an event I felt confident I could give it a good go. Rather than getting people completely absorbed in the tech I felt it would be good to go walking in nature to first talk with the group and answer any questions, before heading home for tea and cake (for good purpose, to be explained…) and then opening the devices up and getting people using some FLOSS.

The weather was not on my side and I had a couple of understandable drop outs as a result, but the rest of us braved the rain and enjoyed the walk and talk. [Pic of me talking] Loosely it went like this:

I explained the purpose of Software Freedom Day and established that everyone knew what I meant by software as apposed to hardware.

I then went in to detail about what defines FLOSS: That it’s four pillars are that anyone can view, copy modify and share its code; That to use free software is to make a political and ethical choice asserting the right to learn, and share what we learn with others; That it is beneficial in education, government, home and business (everywhere!) …There were actually attendees from all of these quarters!

I clarified the difference between proprietary software and FLOSS and talked about how and why FLOSS has higher transparency, greater security, better quality, more flexibility, usually lower cost and no vendor lock-ins. I also explained the difference between just open source software (not free/libre) and free/libre open source software.

Having done all of this I asked my fellow walkers if they knew of any FLOSS software they currently use. Most didn’t know whether things were FLOSS or not but we did establish that some were already being used such as Firefox and WordPress.

In order to show how prevalent FLOSS is I asked people to give me some names of software they use regularly and I’d see if I could name its FLOSS alternative (promising to look it up when I got home if I couldn’t off the top of my head!). Office suites, instant messaging apps, social media apps, map software and photo editing software were all brought up – all ones which I was fortunately able to name the various FLOSS alternatives for.

Having paraphrased a great quote by Jaz – “If the phone companies listened to and analysed our every word in all our conversations to sell our preferences to advertisers and political campaigns, we’d lose our collective minds. But we’ve come to a place where its normalised that software companies do it … a lot of people may be unaware, most probably are and don’t like it but feel there’s no alternative. But there is an alternative: FLOSS.” – I asked, to unanimous affirmative response, if people would prefer to use FLOSS over proprietary software.

We got home, dried off, boiled the kettle and I brought out cakes from three different sources. [Photo of the cakes] One selection was from a bakery. Another was from a shop (inside a packet with the ingredients on) and the final one was home made with the full recipe (ingredients and method) offered with it. I asked if people could look at the cakes as software and tell me which was FLOSS, which was just open-source and which was neither. They got it right, woo and I hoped the cake analogy would make it easier for them to share with others.

I had a few devices that people took turns playing on to test out some FLOSS alternatives to software they currently use including Libre Office, Nexcloud, Gimp, Inkscape, Joplin, Ardour and Podverse, while others downloaded Element Messenger on their phones to communicate via Matrix. [Photo of people trying out some FLOSS alternatives]

A valid question asked was how would people would go about sourcing FLOSS. I suggested a few websites (Switching Software, Awesome Privacy, Chatons Open Source Software Finder, and itsfoss).

One really interesting point that came up and took us on a little tangent was when one participant asked how to respond to people who say, ‘I have nothing to hide so why should I care if I’m spied on?’. I dug out the fantastic article by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten entitled, Read this if you’ve got ‘nothing to hide’, which really does answer the question.

Concerns were raised at the difficulty of using new software which may work slightly differently to what people were used to. The extra effort to learn something new was a concern but I said it was nothing to be afraid of and that with the example of Photoshop to Gimp it’s not like learning a new language it’s just that some things may be in different places so it’s just like getting used to that in the same way people may have had to get used to changes when using something on a Mac compared to a PC.

Oh yeah, and we did touch on Linux too but didn’t delve too far. I was aware of information overload at this point and really this was more of a taster and ‘first entry’ to FLOSS for most of the people there.

It was a really engaging event and I’m glad I did it. I feel that everyone present was genuinely interested and will now take steps to go FLOSS if poss! I’d been unsure if I’d be able to do an event for Software Freedom Day being relatively new to everything myself and also not liking to talk in front of people, but I feel that by doing it as a less formal nature walk and discussion helped on that front too.

Of all of the FLOSS I’d suggested it felt as though Open Street Map was the one that everyone present was going to start using immediately.

Mine was one of 63 events worldwide for this year’s Software Freedom Day. I hope next year we can grow that to a few hundred or more. It seems that FLOSS is becoming more and more utilised and embraced so hopefully that’s a realistic prospect.

[Featured in this article: @jurgentje @dff @jaz @nextcloud @GIMP @inkscape @joplinapp @ardour @podverse @element @matrix @switchingsoftware @ChatonsOrg @itsfoss @openstreetmap]

[Via Ethical Revolution]