FSFE supporters Vienna

We organised an FSFE information booth on Linuxwochen Wien from 4 to 6 of May and at Veganmania at the MQ in Vienna from 24 to 27 May. Like every year it went very well and especially at Veganmania we could reach many people not yet familiar with free software. Since during the Veganmania there was a Wikipedia event in Vienna at the same time we even encountered some people from all over the world. For example an FSF activist from Boston in the US.

We had re-stocked our leaflets with new versions of some well received handouts we had in the past and we put the new leaflets on free software programs for specific tasks from the Munich group to good use.

Even if we didn’t have much diversity from volunteers we managed to keep our information desk open to visitors who wanted to ask questions for the whole time the events had opening hours. In some cases we were the last booth to close since we had engaged consultations going on.

At Linuxwochen Wien in addition a local volunteer hosted a well attended 3 hour workshop on image editing with GIMP and an other one for creating new maps in Trigger Rally.

Especially the GIMP workshop did attract many people and there is a clear demand for follow-ups not only on GIMP but on other free designing programs also.

It is noticeable that more an more people are aware of free software and do use it on purpose. If this slight and slow shift is related to our outreach work is uncertain but it is for sure a welcome observation.

From our point of view the most important reason why free software is not the default but still an exotic exception is the fact that it almost never comes pre-installed with new hardware – at least not on laptops or desktop machines. Many people understand this instantly as soon as they are told about common business practices where big corporations do offer better conditions for resellers if they sell their software on all products exclusively. This is almost never an advantage to the customers but profits are usually more important as customers satisfaction and most people are just unaware of the tight grip in which corporations keep them. Sticking with certain products is rarely about satisfaction. Most of the time it would just be to burdensome to try something else. And this obstacles are by design. Unfortunately it is hard to give an impression on what people are missing out if they are not even prepared to try something different. Most people are not very happy with the situation but because all their friends and colleagues share the same frustrations they have the impression that there is no better alternative.

Maybe it would be a promising approach to make testimonials from non-technical people satisfied with free software more available to the public …