FSFE supporters Vienna

Due to sheduling conflicts we unfortunately missed the opportunity for spreading the message about free software on information desks 2024. But last weekend our local FSFE volunteers team in Vienna manned an other information stall from 12th to 14th September.

As it is already tradition we kept the equipment we used minimal so that it was possible to transport everything strapped onto a normal bicycle. Of course it wasn’t possible to ride it while also transporting the folding tables but since we keep our material in a cellar in the very fortunately located second district we so far could always manage to get everything where we needed it in under an hours walk.

The forecast predicted rather bad weather for all three days but fortunately in the end rain and storm did mostly hit only other parts of Vienna and therefore we only needed to deal with rare sudden stronger wind blows and minor rain interruptions. On the second day we however started with large puddles all over the festival area due to heavy rain during the night. Which provided a typical festival mood at the event and prompted some visitors to come barefeet or with wellies. Nevertheless, it dried up during the day and it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The organisers kept the place practical by spreading out wood chippings where this was beneficial.

Unfortunately, the tent we wanted to borrow wasn’t available and we weren’t able to get an other one but the Veganmania team was kind enough to lend us a big umbrella. Together with our own little umbrella and bungee straps we could cover our whole information desk during the rainy bits. This however didn’t mean that we had easy sailing – or should I say it was actually sometimes more like sailing than we would have liked? At one point a sudden blow took away our smaller umbrella before we could hold on to it and we had to interrupt our conversations to chase it down and to afterwards hold it in place with our hands.

In gereral squishing our umbrellas between the tents of our neighboring stands did work surprisingly well but we often needed to change our solution because the weather changed from wind blows to rain and short intense sun rays quite frequently. Therefore, we closed and opened the umbrellas a lot. Even some transparent plastic over the information desk during a rainy stretch came in handy. In general it felt more like the classical unstable April weather than Autumn. Nevertheless, we managed to keep our information material mostly on the desk and almost completely dry.

Despite the unpredictable weather the festival was frequented by tousands of relaxed people and we had plenty of informative conversations. As usual it was a balanced mix between people who had seen our stand announced online and did visit us intentionally because they wanted to check out what we had to offer and others who didn’t even know that free software exists. Once more our focus on introductory material and our beginner friendly framing payed off.

Often people looked at out desk and wondered what it was about and what our connection to veganism could be. Is was easy to lay out why the ethical reasons vegan people usually have for their lifestyle choice leads to free software when applied to the realm of computers and networks. Both concepts value in essence freedom and souvereignity for the individual. Veganism extends this basic thought to other species while the free softwrae community takes into account that our modern life depends on software and that we need to have access to free tools which allow us to actually exercise our basic rights. It was handy to have the shorthand summary: The subject of this information desk is independence on electronical devices. We believe that everyone should be able to decide what happens to and with the related data. at hand.

The end of security support of Windows 10 came up a lot. And many people were confronted with the situation that they thought they needed to buy new devices because they were informed that Windows 11 wouln’t run on their hardware despite their devices being in mint condition. They appreciated the perspective that with free software they could securely and easily use their hardware for many more years to come without the need to buy something new just because a company far away in America decided they should. But we needed to disappoint quite a few people who faced the issue that Apple doesn’t allow any third party solutions on their mobile devices and that we therefore couldn’t offer them any long-term perspective for their devices.

Most people who are not already deliberate users of free software were intrigued by the idea that proprietary software can for example contain hidden surveillance code while free software does reliably only do what is announced because nobody can hide secret code that hurts user rights in public code.

Despite understanding that free software could be rather valuable to them personally many worried that they wouldn’t be versed enough with computers to tackle the switch to free software on their own. The idea that free software can only be used by computer experts who do everything in the terminal seems to be still the general expectation. We tried to deal with that by explaining that much usability-progress was made in recent years and by offering our personal support in the Viennese area in case of need.

It is scary to offer help to strangers but in my experience those who actually take up the offer are most of the time very reasonable, kind and thankful.

Many wondered how the development of free software is even possible and who pays for all the work done on it. Of course the whole concept only makes sense when we can understand how the progress of free software is sustainable in a world where everyone seems to depend on selling his or her work for the best price. To most people it still seems to be a foreign concept that you can get paid to put effort in things that end up being publicly available for everyone to use when this work is done as a service you get paid for. Or that you do it for your own benefit because you can and because you wanted to solve a problem that wasn’t solved for your purposes yet. Only when exploring the advantage that starting from something already useful to further extend on it people see why free software makes much more sense than the shortsighted concept of proprietary development where the same problems need to be solved again and again because people are to scared to share what was already accomplished.

After talking for hours each day sometimes during live music acts on the stage near by I am tired and happy for a little silence but this years FSFE Veganmania infrormation stall in Vienna was once more a very gratifying experience and I want to thank all helping hands for their readiness to support it. I’m already looking forward to our next information stall.