I love it here

On 8. October the Berlin Fellowship group had their monthly meeting in the Newthinking Store. Beside planning our attendance on the BLIT in Potsdam and the evaluation of the past events like Software Freedom Day and "GNUburtstag" we had a visitor from AK-Vorrat. As he said it would be really good when the Fellowship group will have a booth there we decided to not only go to the demonstration but to have a booth there and inform people about Free Software.

(Please note: There are several people missing on this picture who also helped but who run around distributing leaflets or talking with other groups at the moment the picture was taken.)

So on the 11. Ocotober we first had a small table with leaflets and of course our Fellowship flat at the Alexanderplatz. After the demonstration started we walked together with the rest of the other demonstration participants towards the Brandenburger Tor. It was really cool to see so many people on the street.

On they way we continued to give away leaflets and explain people why they should use Free Software when they care about their privacy (and other reasons). It was really amazing that a lot of people already know about Free Software. Three people said to me: "I already know FSFE, it is really good what you are doing. Please continue your great work!" That was very motivating.

At the end of the demonstration we set up the booth again at the Brandenburger Tor. We gave away over 500 leaflets about Free Software, FSFE and the Fellowship. And I had a lot of interesting discussions while explaining Free Software.

Thanks a lot to all people who helped in preparing our press release and who helped making our presence their a success!!

Some articles and pictures from the event:

• FSFE: press release about "Freedom not Fear". (In seven languages.)
• Golem: "Zehntausende demonstrieren gegen Überwachung. Ein Zeichen gegen zunehmende Überwachung und Kontrolle setzen". (In German but with a lot of pictures.)
• Heise: "Zehntausende demonstrieren für "Freiheit statt Angst". (In German but with a lot of pictures.)
• Netzpolitik: "Größte Demonstration für Datenschutz in Deutschland". (In German.)

The guardian has an article about "cload computing":

"One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control," he said. "It's just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software."

(Read the whole article.)

I also do not understand why so many people give away the control over their data. Especially as the prices of small USB storage is so low...

Let me know your opinions on this on discussion at fsfeurope.org.