When I first heard about FSCONS, I was thrilled by the concept of this event as it seemed to bring Free Software developers and society together. Year after year, people told me how awsome FSCONS was this time, but there was always something else that kept me from going there until 2011. After hearing all the praise, my expectations were high and I couldn’t believe that it was even better than I thought. I just had to go this year, too.
FSCONS Manifesto draft with sticky note suggestions
I woke up at 4 o’clock in the morning to get my flight, hoping to make it just in time for the first workshop: It’s a child’s game
I was really looking forward to it as it was more or less the only education topic this year, but I didn’t make it on time. I got the last 45 minutes, which wasn’t enough to particpate, but I had very interesting conversations. To shorten this posting: the whole three days were filled with pleasant conversations with nice people, so I won’t mention them any more. It’s a natural thing at FSCONS, like breathing air 🙂
After Lunch, I spend four hours in the FYA workshop without managing to root my phone, which supposedly works with Replicant (that’s why I bought it) despite all the help I got from Erik, who held the workshop, and other participants.
I spend the morning at the feminism track, as I already knew what Matthias and Erik would be talking about 🙂 There was a introductional session tha aimed to continue the discussions from last year. As I did not manage to attend last years feminism track, I can’t tell how this relates to it. For me it felt like an interresting brainstorming session about the topic with no actual “results”. In the meantime, the organizers set up a mailing list for people who want to continue the discussion throughout the year until next FSCONS.
And then, there was of course Otto Kekäläinen, the winner of the 2012 Nordic Free Software Award, who held two talks about the amazing stuff the Finnish team has been working on.
So, FSCONS was once again a great experience. Not as great as in 2011, I must say, but this might be just a sujective impression by me who wasn’t on the speaker’s list this time 😉