We're sharing a blog post from Amin Bandali with you in which
Amin explains why he loves speaking at, volunteering for, and
participating in the annual FSF LibrePlanet conference. Besides
being an FSF volunteer, Amin wears several hats around the GNU
Project, including as a GNU maintainer, Webmaster, Savannah
hacker/admin, and assistant GNUisance. Amin is also a core
organizer of EmacsConf, the conference about the joy of GNU Emacs
and Emacs Lisp. In short, Amin is a tireless free software activist,
and we are very proud that he's also a member of the LibrePlanet
committee.
Amin Bandali speaking at LibrePlanet 2022.
Why I love participating in LibrePlanet
I'm Amin Bandali, a free/libre software activist by passion, and a
software developer/engineer and computing scientist by profession. I
am a former intern and current volunteer with the Free Software
Foundation (FSF), and a member of the GNU Project. One of the ways I
volunteer with the FSF is through LibrePlanet. I've helped with
various aspects of the conference's organization, currently mainly
helping as a member of the LibrePlanet committee, which reviews all
session proposals. In this blog post I'd like to give a quick
background on how and why I got involved with LibrePlanet and how I
contribute to it today. I will also share how you, too, could start
helping with the organization of the conference in a number of
different ways, if you're interested!
I first got involved with LibrePlanet as a volunteer a few years
back. By that point, I'd enjoyed participating in the conference via
IRC and watching the talks online for a few years, and I was looking
for ways to get involved. As I couldn't make it to Boston to attend
LibrePlanet in person, I volunteered online, with tasks such as
helping watch over the conference IRC channels and answering questions
as best as I could. I seemed to have done a decent job, since the FSF
folks later asked if I could do the same for a few non-LibrePlanet
online FSF events too, which I gladly accepted.
Having enjoyed both participating and volunteering for LibrePlanet, I
thought it would be great if I could give a talk of my own, too. This
only became possible for me after 2020 with the possibility of doing
remote presentations. Since I sadly cannot attend the event in person
currently, this was a welcome side-effect of the conference
temporarily switching to an online-only format. So, I submitted a
proposal to talk about "Jami and how it empowers users" for
LibrePlanet 2021, which was accepted and became my first LibrePlanet
talk. Though presenting, or even just submitting a talk at a large
conference like LibrePlanet, may sometimes seem like an intimidating
task, I had a great time presenting mine, thanks in no small part to
the FSF staff and other volunteer organizers, as well as the audience
members.
The FSF staff were supportive and encouraging throughout the entire
process of preparing and presenting my talk, and the audience gave
positive and/or constructive feedback after my presentation. Plus, I
greatly enjoyed discussing various free software topics with them,
which was not really surprising because the folks attending
LibrePlanet tend to be free software enthusiasts or activists like
myself who are often just as eager to watch and chat with others about
free software. And, as my good GNU friend Jason Self puts it,
LibrePlanet is a wonderful place for such enthusiasts to "recharge
their free software batteries each year."
Back in 2020, I was invited to join the LibrePlanet committee, a
diverse team of volunteers from different backgrounds and areas of
expertise that review all sessions submitted, helping select session
proposals in a way that provides an exciting lineup of talks for
people of differing areas and levels of experience and interest. I
humbly and happily accepted the invitation to join the committee, and
I help with the reviews to date. (I of course don't review my own
session proposals, nor the ones I recognize to be from people I
know). If you are also interested in joining the LibrePlanet committee
and helping review the wonderful session proposals the team receives
for each conference, you can come by the #libreplanet or #fsf channels
on the Libera.Chat IRC network and reach out to the FSF staff there,
or send an email to [email protected].
Besides being part of the LibrePlanet committee and helping review
session proposals, there are a number of other ways to contribute to
the organization of the conference as well. Technical tasks include
helping with the setup and/or the maintenance of some pieces of
infrastructure for the conference, for example helping maintain the
conference's self-hosted installation of LibreAdventure, which
is the conference's online event space where people can have their
avatars "bump" into each other to have a real-time videoconferencing
chat, and they can explore sessions, the FSF office (digitized),
virtual sponsor booths, and more. Non-technical tasks include helping
with the moderation of the conference's IRC channels on the event
days, and volunteering to introduce, caption or transcribe
talks. There are also other logistical tasks that need doing now that
LibrePlanet is switching to a hybrid format with both online and
in-person events (in Boston). If you are interested in getting
involved and helping with any of these (or other) tasks, please email
to [email protected].
The theme for LibrePlanet 2023 is "Charting the Course", which I find
particularly apt and important. The free software movement has come a
long way and thanks to the tireless efforts of people from
projects and communities of varying sizes, today we can carry out a
very wide range of computing tasks in total freedom. It is also
crucially important to continue recognizing and making progress in the
areas of digital life where avoiding nonfree software may not be
currently possible or feasible. One such notorious area is online
payments, where the GNU Taler folks have been hard at work
making freedom-respecting, privacy-friendly online transactions
possible. At LibrePlanet 2023, I hope to see talks on such areas of
digital life. I look forward to talks presenting the state of
available free software in a certain field and clarify to what extent
we can participate in them in freedom, along with a wishlist for
improvements and a roadmap for moving closer towards freedom in this
specific field so that we will ultimately, hopefully, reach full
digital freedom.
These, along with other factors -- such as the FSF staff striving for
LibrePlanet to be inclusive and accessible, as well as making it
possible to participate online for those of us not able to attend the
event in person -- make LibrePlanet a free software event I'm most
excited about and look forward to each year. I hope and expect that
LibrePlanet 2023 will be a conference with a lineup of interesting,
fun, educational, and thought-provoking user freedom themed talks and
sessions, along with a chance to catch up and socialize with fellow
free software hackers, activists, and/or enthusiasts from all over the
world, just like it always has been -- especially this time with its
ever more relevant theme of "Charting the Course" to not only reflect
and celebrate the path we've come so far, but to also look towards the
future and chart the course to software user freedom for coming
generations.
Take care, and I hope to see you around for LibrePlanet 2023!
Amin Bandali
LibrePlanet Committee Member and assistant GNUisance
Copyright (c) 2022 Amin Bandali. Copying and distribution of this
file, with or without modification, are permitted in any medium
without royalty provided the copyright notice and this notice are
preserved. This file is offered as-is, without any warranty.
