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Shane Coughlan in Vienna - The Professionalisation of Free Software

lun., 01 sep 2008 16:52:14 +0200

As one can already read in the events section on fsfeurope.org:

The Vienna Fellowship Group invites to a speech of Shane Martin Coughlan about "The Professionalisation of Free Software. Where we are going next." The event which is organised in the context of a q/talk special takes place in Room D / quartier21, QDK / Electric Avenue, MQ Wien on 5 September 2008, starting at 20:00. Entrance is from 19:00. The speech will be finished around 21:15, after that there will be opportunity to ask questions. Admission is free.

We here in Vienna are looking forward to Shane's visit for a long time and are happy that the preparations are finally going very well.

Of course, I will blog again afterwards, so that those, who cannot attend, can get an impression of the event.

Linuxwochen Wien 2008

vie., 23 may 2008 17:12:47 +0200

The Linuxwochen (translated "Linux-Weeks") are Austria's biggest GNU/Linux-related conference/exhibition. This year, they take place in six austrian cities, naturally including Vienna. So last week, from Thursday to Saturday our Vienna Fellowship Group was present at the Linuxwochen Wien 2008.

We had a booth with the typical Fellowship/FSFE merchandise and most of the flyers available from http://www.fsfeurope.org/documents/leaflets/. We also adapted the flyer from the Berlin Fellowship Group to our needs. The result can be found here (German).

This time, we had a really hard job, because this year the Linuxwochen Wien were aimed at beginners and people who want to switch to GNU/Linux. Convincing a GNU/Linux-nerd that it is good when he can use/study/share/improve the source is much easier than explaining the advantages or importance of Free Software to somebody who has just started exploring "the computer". However, I think we did a pretty good job, because we had many interesting and profitable discussions. We even had a few people that stayed for hours at our booth!

You can see some photos of our booth here, however, I soon got tired of making photos, so one only gets a glimpse of the event...

Last but not least we organised a talk, which was held by two Fellows and was specially aimed at beginners and people new to the idea of Free Software. Though we had the most difficult slot, namely the last one, where people tend to be tired and unreceptive, the feedback was really great, so the talk was definitely a success! You can download the slides (German) here.

Though those three days were really exhausting and stressful, we all enjoyed our time at the Linuxwochen and we are definitely looking forward to the next event!

DFD in Vienna: A review.

jue., 27 mar 2008 19:49:16 +0100

Our Fellowship group from Vienna placed a booth in front of the Museumsquartier (on the corner of Mariahilferstrasse and Museumsplatz). We were there from 10:00 until 18:15 and raised awareness for the relevance of Free Document Standards among the many interested people who passed by. So we did wait until somebody came to us in the most cases, since there are so many organisations that ask to sign some petition or want you to donate something. This is why people tend to be rude and not receptive if you just start talking to them on the streets.

However, we were astonished to see how many people were interested in what we were doing. We were also surprised to reach so many different kinds of people with our message. There were people of all ages and all professions (we even met a soldier and a nun), so we can approve that open standards for electronic documents are important for everyone.

There also were many tourists from all over the world, who primarily wanted to ask the way. However, though they were on holidays, we were able to brief them about ODF too.

The first thing we did after telling the people that it is Document Freedom Day was to ask if they use a computer to write text, work with spreadsheets or presentations. Only two or three people did respond that they do not have a PC. The others, except for less than three people, did all use proprietary software and file formats. They were surprised to hear that this is not good for them. After some discussion most people were thankful for the new facts and took a flyer with them.

Apart from the great material we found in the starter pack we organised some flyers in german and some CDs with free software for reading/writing ODF for those without broadband connections.

Check out the Photos!

Along with the booth we also organised an online activity. Unfortunately, we all get an e-mail with an attachement in a proprietary format once in a while. On DFD we did strike back! We sent e-mails to all our contacts that besides an explanatory body also contained an attachement (german) in ODF format.

Document Freedom Day in Vienna/Austria

vie., 21 mar 2008 13:10:47 +0100

In Vienna we are currently organising the Document Freedom Day Event. We will place a booth (table, chairs and the flag will do the job) in front of the Museumsquartier (on the corner of Mariahilferstrasse and Museumsplatz) and will try to raise awareness for the relevance of Free Document Formats among interested people who pass by. Apart from the great material from the starter pack we will organise some flyers in german and some CDs with free software for reading/writing ODF for those without broadband connections. The event will take place from 10:00 to 20:00. Everyone who wants to participate is very welcome!

We are also planning some online activities, so stay tuned. ;-)

Here is the (german) Announcement:

26. März 2008: FSFE veranstaltet internationalen Document Freedom Day in Wien

Der 26. März 2008 ist weltweit Document Freedom Day, Tag der Dokumentenfreiheit und offenen Standards. Die Initiative von Free Software Foundation Europe, ODF Alliance, OpenForum Europe, IBM, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems und zahlreichen weiteren Firmen und Individuen soll die Bedeutung des freien Informationsaustausches hervorheben und ins allgemeine Bewusstsein rücken.

Offene Dokumentenformate wie das Open Document Format (ODF), der einzige ISO-Standard, bieten eine Reihe von Vorteilen wie Wahlfreiheit in Bezug auf Software, bessere Interoperabilität und Dauerhaftigkeit der gespeicherten Dokumente. Weitere Informationen finden sich unter: http://www.documentfreedom.org

185 Teams in 60 Ländern hissen die Flagge und unterstützen freie Dokumentenformate. Die Wiener Fellows der FSFE (http://www.fsfe.org) organisieren eine Informationsveranstaltung, welche ab 10 Uhr vor dem Museumsquartier (Mariahilfer Straße Ecke Museumsplatz) stattfindet. Alle Unterstützer und Interessierte sind eingeladen, einfach vorbeizukommen.

DFD Starter Pack received

lun., 17 mar 2008 12:32:09 +0100

Today I received the starter pack for our DFD team.

Background:

In order to celebrate the Document Freedom Day on March 26th, fellows from Vienna, Austria teamed up and registered on the DFD homepage. Since our team was within the first 100 to register, we received one of the free starter packs which were arranged by the FSFE. Many thanks to the involved fellows!

When we finish planning our activities for DFD I will post further information on this site and our DFD profile...

Photos:

The starter pack contains a flag, three t-shirts, flyers and a bunch of stickers. Here are some photos.

Software Freedom Day in Vienna, Austria

dom., 23 sep 2007 15:01:57 +0200

Last weekend I celebrated software freedom day together with other fellows from Vienna. Our idea was to take our laptops and sit down in some public space where we would attract the attention of the people who pass by.

As location we chose the Museumsquartier (a kind of "cultural complex" or "cultural district", as the homepage states), and after some administrative barriers we got the necessary permissions.

The motto was "We are hacking for your freedom". So, provided with power and wlan from the nearby net culture lab, we started to hack for freedom. We stayed there the whole day, and had lots of conversations about Free Software and related issues with the people passing by.

Finally, here are some photos from the event.