FSCONS 2008

A Short Summary of FSCONS 2008

Do, 06 Nov 2008 03:23:14 +0100

After eight months of hard work, the Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit of 2008 has come to an end. With around 250 visitors, the conference attendance slightly exceeded our expectations, and it was a truly thrilling experience to be part of it.

Already in the preparation stages of FSCONS it became clear that we had something good and unique going. With the aim of making it a social event that bridges between the different movements working for digital freedom, we tried to construct a multifaceted but unified program that in large part emphasized the social aspects. In addition to the many wonderful speakers, this years conference included a great variety of social activities like workshops, codesprints, a music performance, copyright discussions and, of course, Free Beer. Most of the speakers we invited expressed a great interest in the event, even before it had started, and we had no problems recruiting a sufficient number of volunteers to help us make FSCONS happen.

Our initial decision to divide the speeches and workshops into eight different rooms had its advantages, but also made it very difficult to record every presentation. We did however manage to stream many of them live, and thanks to the hard work of the giss.tv crew, all the videos from FSCONS are already available at http://giss.tv/dmmdb/fscons. In addition to videos, we have published the slides from many of our speakers at http://fscons.org/slides and you can find links to all the films that were screened during the conference at http://fscons.org/film-program

Although the planning started as early as February, there were of course many things that didn't fall into place until right before the conference. Some of our ideas, like having a Creative Commons Concert in the evening, even had to be discarded, seeing that it was rather impossible to find a suitable concert venue in Gothenburg less than six months in advance. Having a very limited budget was probably our biggest concern though. With few initial sponsors and no idea how many visitors would come, we were unable to tell the speakers that they would have their travel costs covered, and every estimate involving money, like the amount of food and t-shirts, felt risky to say the least. Fortunately though, the conference turned out to be a success in the end, and we even ended up with a small surplus that will help us make the next FSCONS even better.

Many things need to be improved for next year, but all in all it went very well, and the response we received was overwhelmingly positive. We have already started preparations for next year's event and invite everyone to join the planning process by subscribing to our mailing list at http://mail.fscons.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss. If you only want the major updates, we have a list for that too, at http://mail.fscons.org/mailman/listinfo/announce.

I'm very happy to have been involved in such a wonderful event and hope to see you all at the next FSCONS.

Live Video Streaming from FSCONS

Fr, 24 Okt 2008 01:46:41 +0200

All of you who can't afford the time or money to visit this year's FSCONS will be pleased to know that you can follow the lectures from home. With help from the GISS team, particularly streaming gurus Yves Degoyon and Valentina Messeri, we'll be able to show live video streams from most of the lectures.

The video will be broadcast in the Ogg Theora format, which can be viewed in almost any video player. Exceptions include, of course, Apple's and Microsoft's software, though that can be fixed by installing Xiph QuickTime Components or DirectShow Filters for their respective operating systems. If you are in doubt or have troubles, use VLC.

The URL for the streams will be published on http://fscons.org/streams/ by Saturday morning.

FSCONS 2007 - The Complete Video Collection

Mo, 01 Sep 2008 16:24:02 +0200

I am pleased to announce that the remaining videos for FSCONS 2007 has been uploaded as torrent distributable files to the advocacy section of fsfe.org.

Among them are Georg Greve's keynote speech "Freedom at Stake", as well as OpenMoko, OpenID, MySQL and many more.

You can find all video torrents for FSCONS 2007 at http://fsfe.org/en/advocacy/audio_videos/fscons_2007

Visit FSCONS 2008: http://fscons.org

UPDATE: The videos torrents have moved to http://wiki.fsfe.org/FsconsVideos2007

Second FSCONS Newsletter Available

Di, 22 Jul 2008 13:59:57 +0200

I'm pleased to inform you that our second newsletter for FSCONS is available. If you missed our first one, you can download it from our website at fscons.org. This time we have several great additions to our speakers list, a brand new IRC channel and tasty details on the food that will be available at the conference.

Get the newsletter here: http://fscons.org/files/fscons-newsletter-2008-07-18.pdf

Nominations for the Nordic Free Software Award 2008

Do, 03 Jul 2008 14:45:45 +0200

The Nordic Free Software Award is given to Nordic citizens, projects or organizations that have made a prominent contribution to the advancement of Free Software. Nominations for the Free Nordic Software Award 2008 can be submitted at http://fscons.org/award/nominate/ until September 1st. The jury consists of representatives associated with the Free Software Movement in the various Nordic countries.