On February 14, 01:38:27 UTC, came the first identi.ca message related to FSFE’s “I love FS” campaign. This was only the start of a tremendous love declaration to Free Software developpers and applications that went out until late at night, around 3:00 a.m.

Hundreds of declarations and re-dents have floaded on identi.ca, twitter, on blogs, reached some news websites (Netzpolitik, Bristol Wireless, Firebird news…), proclaiming our love for Free Software in English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish and even Chinese !

Here, one attempt to put in a nutshell an exploding love wave for Free Software that went public on Valentine’s Day…

“Die Nerds denken am 14.2. an Software #ilovefs“

(Nerds think about Free Software on Valentine’s Day)

Lots of Free Software applications have been named on Feb. 14. You’ve declared your love to :

♥android ♥KDE ♥ubuntu ♥fedora ♥OpenSUSE ♥OpenOffice ♥libre office ♥firebug ♥typo3 ♥FreeBeer Design ♥SM-Player ♥Apache ♥PHP ♥MySQL ♥WordPress ♥jQuery ♥Gimp ♥crunchbang ♥Inkscape ♥ XWiki  ♥Plasma ♥Dolphin ♥Akregator ♥Choqok ♥Kate ♥Git ♥Firefox ♥Calligra ♥MPlayer ♥StepMania-SSC ♥Linux ♥Kwin ♥mandriva ♥linux_mint ♥backtrace ♥penguyOS ♥sidux ♥Sabayon ♥arch ♥gentoo ♥centOS ♥FreeBSD ♥openBSD ♥KNOPPIX ♥zenwalk ♥puppylinux ♥remind ♥BISTeam ♥Rhythmbox ♥Jolicloud ♥Emacs org-mode ♥identica-mode ♥StatusNet ♥yeeloong ♥gNewSense ♥Trisquel ♥BLAG ♥launchpad ♥OCam ♥opensource ♥Meld

WE ♥ FREE SOFTWARE

…

Best of IM love declarations

(totally subjective choice – full list on identi.ca)

• Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. – Einstein, FS helps with that
• WikimediaDE :  Schöne Aktion der Free Software Foundation Europe: “Declare your love for Free Software!”
• FFII: FFII loves !freesoftware because it has a natural preference against software patents and for open standards
• Wie das Netz ohne Firefox, wie ein Office ohne LibreOffice […] – so bin ich ohne Dich!
• You’re to my life what Free Software is to my computer: everything !

• Thank you for improving my Life !kde and !Qt !FOSS #ilovefs
• Thanks to all those who contribute to Free Software – You rock! 😀
• Today’s I’m working as an FOSS engineer and I love that.

Blogged love declarations

Marcus Möller’ fotographs of FSFE’S Fellowship’s logo in Switzerland

The blogosphere also contains beautiful love declarations, like :

I love Free Software. I love how it makes my life easier. How I can bend it to my will and use it they way I want, instead of having to bend my will and use it the way some developer wanted.

I love the idea of people selflessly sharing their ideas and solutions for the betterment of all. […] I also love the community. […] In short, there’s a whole lot of love going out here. Keep being awesome everyone! [read full version]

also some declarations were directly made per mails to the projects:

It’s time to admit, the day is an appropriate one: I love meld! It has saved my not-so-IRL life many many times. […] I will always recommend it to anyone needing it and advocate for it at all time. […] Thank you so much for making meld what it is!!

and the tale-like blog post from Firebug:

Once upon a time, when I was a very young man, I fell in love with a maiden called the World Wide Web. It was a torrid affair, complete with romantic strolls through MSDN, beautiful bouquets of CSS, and passionate letters scrawled in JavaScript.

and the one we don’t understand, the only Chinese declaration we received !

and many many others [1]

One last word

Some declarations have also taken another form, by making bug reports full of love… Just see the one sent to Fedora : “A big Hug Today on V-Day”

At FSFE, the web Team changed the layout of the website, so that all FSFE pages claim their love for Free Software :

Thank you everybody for the huge participation to this I love Free Software Day 2011, and for the developers : Keep up the good work ! Hundreds of people count on you and support you !

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