Communicating freely
Thoughts on how we can all talk a little easier, and how that can make life better.
Doing the European cafe thing
I’m sitting in a cafe in central Zurich. I’m about two minutes from the new FSFE office. It’s quite a change of scene from Ireland.
I moved to Switzerland to begin working as a project coordinator for the Free Software Foundation Europe at the end of September. We’re doing some exciting new things to protect and promote Free Software in the European arena and the Zurich office will be in the middle of all the adventures.
Free Software has really come along in the last few years. The Linux kernel is powering a heck of a lot of computers and GNU/Linux operating system distributions are being deployed in increasing frequency. Perhaps the most important change is political; Free Software is entering the mainstream.
I feel that 2006 is something of a turning-point for Free Software. A new license is on the way (GPLv3). Cities are transitioning to our technology. Big vendors like IBM, Sun and Novell are increasing their commitments to our success.
Sure, not everything is rosy. There is still bickering in the sidelines about stuff like ‘Free Software’ vs ‘open source’ and GPLv2 vs GPLv3. Flame wars still appear on sites like Slashdot. But I think if we look at the bigger picture things are going very well.
One thing I’ve been talking about for a while is the increasing maturity of the Free Software ecosystem. That is, the extension of Free Software into realms far removed from the hackers who often created it. I believe this extension is particularly important in the political and business spheres.
We are seeing the emergency of a ‘professional’ layer in the Free Software world; these include managers, salespeople and marketing experts. I think this is an excellent and necessary step to ensure the long-term adoption of Free Software by society as a whole. The concept is permeating beyond its creators and entering social consciousness.
Yes, these are exciting times.
I’m delighted that I am participating in these times through the Free Software Foundation Europe. We have a great deal of work to do. It’s going to be challenging and it’s going to be fun.
I will try to document my adventures through my blog as often as possible (and my apologies for the relative neglect in the last few weeks). If you need to contact me you can do so through email (coughlan@fsfeurope.org, shane@shaneland.co.uk). In the meantime – if you have a moment – I’d love to hear your comments on where you think Free Software will go in the next twelve months.