The fourteenth edition of the Free Software Foundation's (FSF)
conference on technology and social justice will be held in spring
2022, online. The Call for Sessions is now open, and will close on
December 1, 2022. Potential talks should examine free software
through the lens of this year's theme: Living Liberation.
LibrePlanet has always been a community event, having grown
from a small FSF associate member meeting initiative. In those
years, most of the speakers at LibrePlanet were FSF staff or
board members. In the years since, we have placed individuals
from the community front and center, making the conference an
experience focused on connection, collaboration, and
education. LibrePlanet 2022 will take this even further. We
have had (and will continue to have) many internal conversations
about what we can do better for LibrePlanet 2022, and with your
involvement, we will deliver another successful community
event. LibrePlanet 2022 will be a fully online event, and we'll
have many more details to share about how that will work in the
coming months.
The FSF is continuing its hard work on fundamental governance
improvements, and we are still dealing with the effects of
the coronavirus pandemic, both its continued impact on our
present lives and its unforeseeable future consequences. But the
last two years have taught us that -- with the help of the
LibrePlanet speaker and volunteer community -- we can overcome
adversity and organize a successful, engaging, and interactive
conference experience online, using only free software. We will
build on what we've learned, and strive to make the 2022 edition
the best one yet.
Our theme this year explores how to accelerate the integration of
free software into our daily lives. This year, we're
collaborating more closely with the LibrePlanet community
committee, an initiative we started last year. We plan to deliver
a truly community-focused event: one that meets people where they
are, and through connection and collaboration, moves us all
toward freedom together. As part of that, we want to hear from
you. If you have any suggestions about LibrePlanet, need some
help with your session proposal, or just have some questions for
the team, please come meet with us in our weekly IRC office hour
in the #libreplanet channel of the Libera.chat IRC
network. These sessions will be held every Thursday beginning
October 7th, and until the CFS closes, from 13:00 to 14:00
EDT (17:00 - 18:00 UTC), and 13:00 - 14:00 EST (18:00 - 19:00
UTC) after November 11. Please also take the time to help us by
answering some questions and providing feedback on our
questionnaire, and we will take your answers into our
planning.
LibrePlanet: Living Liberation
All of us play a role in creating free software: developing it,
distributing it, sharing feedback about it, and spreading both
its code and underlying message. From the beginning of the
movement, and every day, users have supplanted technological
oppression with empowerment. This year's theme is about urging
people to do more to make free software part of their daily
lives, one decision at a time.
The headlines are still replete with the latest offenses to
liberty, privacy, and basic dignity. Apple continues
to "innovate" in new affronts to digital ethics, wielding
absolute control over the software running on the devices
they manufacture, and increasingly elaborate schemes to rob
users of privacy. Despite claims to the contrary, Microsoft is
still fervently opposed to user freedom, through new methods to
restrict machines running Windows, and through its
leveraging network services like Microsoft GitHub to force
free software developers to yield their freedom. At the same
time, the mainstream press is filled with misuses of technical
power: whether on the part of known aggressors like
Facebook, or bad actors who use the ongoing pandemic as an
opportunity to spy on workers and seize control of
courts.
When faced with challenges like these, some might throw up their
hands and claim defeat. What can we do when it seems like each
and every day encroaches on what freedom we have remaining? The
answer is simpler than it appears: choose freedom. As nearly
everything we do in a single day is mediated by technology, we
are presented with just as many opportunities to opt for freedom,
and to work free software into the fabric of our daily lives:
whether that means climbing the "freedom ladder" by
refusing to use nonfree JavaScript, using free software to
encrypt our communications, or to demand a fully free
operating system. The free software experience is made up of
daily choices like these, which is why the theme for LibrePlanet
2022 is Living Liberation, emphasizing the need to take
constant and incremental steps toward full software freedom on
the individual, group, and societal levels.
Submissions to the Call for Sessions are being accepted
through Wednesday December 1, 12:00 EST (17:00 UTC). General
registration, award nominations, exhibitor registration,
sponsoring packages and scholarship info will follow soon.
We invite activists, hackers, law professionals, artists,
students, developers, young people, policymakers, tinkerers,
newcomers to free software, and anyone looking for technology
that aligns with their ideals, to submit a proposal for a
session at LibrePlanet 2022. Session proposals can focus on software
development, copyleft, community, or other related issues to this
year's theme.
What kind of sessions are we looking for?
Are you integrating free software in your life, or are you struggling to
do just that? We want to hear from you!
Examine free software through this year's theme,
"Living Liberation," and share how you integrate free software in
your daily life, your struggles and successes, or give a talk
exploring the theme through broader spheres of education,
licensing, medicine, government, business, art, social movements,
or improving accessibility;
Tell the world about your free software project;
Suggest an educational panel or Q&A session on a pressing topic
like free software in artificial intelligence, or
software-driven cars;
Explore current topics in free software licensing and copyleft,
or give a great licensing tutorial;
Host a workshop or tutorial on how to use a free software tool,
free software program, or free hardware project;
Explore a free software concept or share your technical
knowledge in an interactive session or through a live
programming session; or
Lead a project "sprint" (a group work session).
All sessions will be reviewed by a community council representing
a wide range of expertise. It's important to us to provide
sessions that are friendly to newcomers, as well as those that
help experienced hackers improve their technical skills. Whatever
your experience level or the experience level of your audience,
we want to include your session! If you're new to the community,
or if you're looking for inspiration, check out this past year's
conference site and session videos.
If you have any questions, comments, ideas, if you would like to
be part of the LibrePlanet 2022 committee, or if you would like
to just socialize, you can join us in the #libreplanet channel in
IRC (on Libera.chat).
