LibrePlanet Free Software Conference Coming to Cambridge, March 22-23
Keynote speakers for the event include FSF president, Richard Stallman, who led the development of the free software GNU operating system and started the free software movement, Sue Gardner, outgoing executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, Eben Moglen, executive director of the Software Freedom Law Center, and Karen Sandler, executive director of the GNOME Foundation. Jacob Appelbaum, noted security researcher and hacker, will address the LibrePlanet audience via a live Web-cast from Berlin.
LibrePlanet is where global free software community members and newcomers meet together to learn from each other, share accomplishments, and face challenges. LibrePlanet is geared for all experience levels, from those interested in learning more about how to protect their privacy and security online, to those who have been contributing to free software projects for years. This is the sixth annual LibrePlanet conference.
This year, the theme of LibrePlanet is "Free Software, Free Society." How can free software protect journalists, whistleblowers, activists, and regular computer users from government and corporate surveillance? How can free software, or free software values like copyleft, community development, and transparency, be used by people fighting to create free societies around the world? What challenges are standing between us and our goal of free software ubiquity?
Throughout the conference, over thirty sessions in four simultaneous tracks will feature workshops and sessions like, "The creeping techno-surveillance state: how can we fight back?," "No more mouse: saving elementary education," and "Building an open digital archive in India: knowledge, access and other issues". On Saturday evening, the FSF will announce the winners of its annual Award for Projects of Social Benefit and Award for the Advancement of Free Software.
LibrePlanet 2014 will be fully live-streamed at http://libreplanet.org/2014/live/ with opportunities to participate in live chats about the conference sessions. More information about LibrePlanet 2014: Free Software, Free Society can be found at: https://libreplanet.org/2014.
About the Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at https://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.
About SIPB
SIPB is MIT's volunteer student computing group, improving computing at MIT since 1969. Today, SIPB projects provide innovative services and special expertise to the MIT community.
About the GNU Operating System and Linux
Richard Stallman announced in September 1983 the plan to develop a free software Unix-like operating system called GNU. GNU is the only operating system developed specifically for the sake of users' freedom. See https://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html.
In 1992, the essential components of GNU were complete, except for one: the kernel. When in 1992 the kernel Linux was re-released under the GNU General Public License, making it free software, the combination of GNU and Linux formed a complete free operating system, which made it possible for the first time to run a PC without non-free software. This combination is the GNU/Linux system. For further explanation, see https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html.
