LibrePlanet 2023

Authors Jason Self

Plaintext

jxself.org

LibrePlanet 2023 Home

Sat, 15 Oct 2022 Linux-libre
I wanted to write about my experience with LibrePlanet, and what the theme "Charting
the Course" means for me. GitWeb

The FSF's annual LibrePlanet conference is coming up in March. I read that this will How To
be a hybrid of in-person and online. I enjoyed the ones that were held virtually.
However, the LibreAdventure part made it even better. That made it feel much more Articles
like an in-person conference where you could walk around and talk to other people
directly. I hope that the FSF continues to use it for the 2023 meeting.
RSS Feed
The first LibrePlanet conference I went to was in March 2010. I arrived early to
volunteer at the FSF office to help out. I don't recall what I did, only that it had About Me
something to do with the lunch tickets. I found the FSF staff to be quite friendly and
welcoming, even getting together in the conference room to talk during lunch. Contact Me
The conference was at the Harvard University Science Center. It lasted for three days,
GPL enforced
and I was impressed with the entire thing. For me, I was able to meet many people in
person that I'd only read about or spoken with online. Purely as one example, I
remember meeting Richard Stallman for the first time. I was standing near the If you appreciate any of the things I
registration desk, with my back to it. Then, behind me, I heard a voice ask the am doing you can make a donation.
registration desk staff where the GNU Hackers Meeting was held. Before this, I'd only
watched RMS's recorded talks, but I recognized the voice and turned around to meet
him.

The activity during the conference was non-stop: I'd get up for the meetings in the
morning, which would begin at 9, go to talks and socialize with people throughout.
After it was over for the day, things kept going full steam. I would break off with people
to continue mixing and hacking, often until 2am, when I started to feel exhausted from
running non-stop all day. I was one of the founding people of the LibreWRT project,
which was formed during one of these nightly hacking sessions (later merged into
libreCMC). This provided just enough time to get back to the hotel to sleep for perhaps
5 or 6 hours before getting up the next day and doing it all over again. I was
exhausted but happy.

I've continued attending LibrePlanet and found it a great way to recharge my free
software batteries each year.
The theme for the 2023 conference is "Charting the Course," which, for me, reflects
on the status of the free software movement. We're at the forefront of figuring this out
and determining the best course to take for the advancement of software freedom. If
we have our feet on the ground and look forward to the future, we can figure out how
to best advance the cause.

I look forward to attending in person and hope to see you there.