 Okay, so this is this is one that is going to be a bit of a test or in on the test but we have a lot of people in which is great because we want to talk about community. How do you organize a local group? What do you have to do to make people join you? What are the things that we've learned from different countries and to do that we have a bunch of local organizers from different groups large and small joining us. I'll run through the names really quickly and then I'll ask them all to do a little. Hi, I'm this person. So I have Bonnie from Germany. I have jammy from Switzerland. I have italo from Italy. I have Leo from Switzerland. And then I have Roberto from Miami, which is the United States if we're doing countries. And then I have Christina in the background who doesn't have her video on yet from Buenos Aires. And that's all of them. So we might as well start with Bonnie, you're the first in my, the first person I see. So, another introduction, please. I'm Bonnie from the FSFE. I'm a junior project manager. And yeah, I work with local communities and also recently I became a translator, the translator coordinator. And I also do the podcast, the Zafra Freedom podcast with Matthias for the FSFE. And I'm here and looking forward to the discussion about local group activists. So I would be gone. Thank you. Jamie. Hi, my real name is Jean-Marie Adafre. As you said, I'm from Switzerland originally from Italy. I am a member of the Free Software Foundation, but also of the Free Software Foundation Europe. And in Zurich I work as the country coordinator of Switzerland for the Free Software Foundation. I'm working as a sales guy and working also as a project manager for my own company. Okay. Thank you very much for joining us. I'm going to move on to Leo because Leo is, do I say Leo or Leah? Sorry. My name is Leo as you have mentioned. I have been acting as a country coordinator for Switzerland for the last 12 years or so. Together with Jummy as a local group leader in the last time, we had some different people in that position before I have handed over now to Jummy because I have recently moved to France. And maybe I'm still moving on. That's not yet sure. But yeah, we can tell you a little bit of what we have achieved and how we have done it in Switzerland. Yeah, that's great. So you're in France now? I'm currently in France. A lot of people from France today. Moving on to Roberto. Hey everyone, I'm Roberto. I'm the founder of Lever Miami, which is a local group here in Miami. And I'm also a web developer and I'm really glad to be representing the United States and Florida and Miami. Thanks for joining us, Roberto. Italo. Oh, I don't know. I think you're muted. No. Not muted. I think, am I the only one not hearing it? I'm going to move on to Christina then for a second. It's Christina. Hi. Good to see you. So you can introduce yourself. Sorry, I think something is happening with your sound. So that should work now. Oh, there you go. Okay, sorry. With big blue button, sometimes it happens. And so Italo Vignoli from Milano in Italy. I am one of the founders of the LibreOffice project. And I'm currently handling marketing and community outreach for the LibreOffice project at global level, also managing or trying to manage the Italian community, which has the Libre, under the LibreItalia umbrella name for the LibreOffice project and contributing to several other projects as well. Lots to learn, I think, from Italo as well. Christina, hi. Hi. A little introduction. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't speak English since several years. Well, I'm Christina from Buenos Aires, Argentina. And I am currently participating on several free software clubs. I was founder of one called Foike, but now it's not functioning. Yeah, no, you're doing great. Okay. That's all. Okay. I think probably the best thing to do to coordinate this, keep this a little coordinated, I guess, is maybe ask everyone what the thing is that you think is the most important thing to get people involved locally, where you are. And I'm going to start, I think, with Italo on that, just because I feel like your experience will sort of incentivize other people to think about different things as well. Okay, so it's involving people in open source is not always easy. It, and it's a lot different country to country, because there are different habits, different cultural point of view, different languages, and of course, English is often often a barrier to to contributing on a global project for instance with LibreOffice. We have many local communities. We have a huge community for instance in Indonesia, where the people that is speaking English is just a minority. So we always try to to mediate between having some people connected to the to the center of the project to the global project to to get the information and then the same people translating the information and adapting the information for the local market. This is especially true for Asia. Asia has so many different languages that it makes almost impossible for someone who has a western culture to understand them all also very different cultures in comparison with our, at least with the European one, but in general with western culture in in in general. Also, we have also similar issues in South America where the majority of people speak Spanish. It's not fluent in English. So, of course, we try to have people speak the local language. When presenting at conferences. This is one of the reasons why I often visit South America because I speak a little bit of Spanish I understand it perfectly understand perfectly Portuguese but I can speak Spanish a little bit. So that makes it easier to keep the community together. And then if you go at local level. Of course, there are a lot of local nuances in managing the community in in a country in Italy, for instance, we have a lot of activities. We try to have a lot of activities at government level because we have a law that usually that should mandate open source, but it's not really respected by many people. Of course, the proprietary software companies are trying to find ways of getting around the low in a way that then people is locked in in their software we, for instance, during the covid the covid lockdown. We have seen Microsoft Google with their solutions trying to conquer schools. So we have tried to create some some alternatives. But of course, we have we don't have the same the same power in terms of ammunitions they they have a lot of advertising money. They have a lot of lobbying money and sometimes it's difficult to keep the pace of these companies. Of course, the activities at local level are in the native language so everything that we do in it in Italy is in Italian. But we try also another thing that we try to do is to motivate people that are in local communities to be more active in the global one. So there are many different levels where you can develop the community. Yeah, not always easy. Nice challenge, especially for elderly people like me. I find a lot of I find it really exciting to transfer my knowledge to younger generation that this I think makes me not only consuming the oxygen but also doing something positive for the world. Okay, this is very noble. I'm very happy to hear that. I think it's interesting the the the global first local that you can talk about. I think I would love to hear a little bit about your experiences in Switzerland. Both Leo and Jami, because from what I understand Leo started it a little bit and then Jami followed up right in your work in Switzerland. Yeah, Jami has just now recently followed up with my move to France. I have been responsible in the last 10 or 12 years as a country coordinator for the local group also in some time. But the question was about how to get people on board and I think this is you, you have mentioned very important point with the language barrier. We also have this in some kind of form because the country split to four language regions. Yeah, so I know about this issue. But on the other part it's more also about the local engagement how we can bring people from the local communities to actually take part at the first point to know about us because of course we are in some point visible because we do media work we do presentations we do work at universities and things like this but first of all besides that nobody knows about our activities only if they see the results of them. Which we present very obviously with our campaigns and and our efforts in the media and all this kind of things. So for us it's really important that we have new members on board that that it keeps going always because otherwise it can happen that this local groups. I mean we had also really different times we had times where it was like three four we had times where it was 1520 people only in the local group in Zurich. I'm not sure Jami how many people usually take part now. So the issue is mainly to get fresh blood into the system that it does not die out and this is really difficult and from my experience I have been professionally working in the university spaces for the last 15 years or something. Sorry I'm not so good with the time. But I think it's really important to engage students because students are like a multiplicators if they have good experience with free software and mostly in technical universities. It can make a lot of sense. And because then this people for example organize also new Linux installation days and courses and things like this and yeah bring bring the interest in the topic because in generally and yeah as I've mentioned if you don't know about it if you don't use the free software why you should want to join a local group to help to make it better. So first there must be a part to make free software known which is also the FSF doing a really good work besides FSFA of course we are all doing together really great work to make free software known. So people use it. And then we have to bring them to engage in the topic and this is also also I would like to hear also your experience. What are your concepts to bring the people on board to fight for free software and to make build a movement and to keep it alive in long term. So if I can add something basically found out that just meeting you know one time per month. That's not enough. Basically we have to go to the people and we did this with different workshops. We also help in the repair cafes to make new Linux installations. We had people or we had workshops about setting their own servers and so on. Leo she mentioned that about the media. So unfortunately we're doing press releases about the things we do you know, but let's say that the main mainstream media doesn't publish anything about us. It's mostly alternative media. That's really unfortunate. Another thing that is a little bit difficult is sometimes you have people visiting the local group. They come one time to time and then they realize you know you have to sacrifice some spare time. No for the different projects. If you want to really promote free software. So we always see people coming in all come to times and then leaving again. So that's really unfortunate. I'm lucky because we have like a strong base of eight people in Zurich who are really dedicated for free software when there is a lot of time free time in the different project and that's that's basically really big motivator for me and also for Leo to continue this fight. That is that is I like the the reaching out the student think I think I think that's one of the things that I fully agree with. Also because they have a very long life ahead of them so they can advocate for a very long time. I would love to hear Bonnie your response to how you if you hear people talk about how it's going in Switzerland but also Italo because you're a little bit in between right in the way you organize and you're the level at which you're organizing is a little bit in between the size of the organization of TDF and the local series group. Yeah, of course, especially as we have an European point of view and not only like on one country. I'm sorry my video is really lacking I hope my voice is okay. So I hope you can all hear me quite good. What I would say is that workshops and workshops is really important like people a chance to get in and to get involved and to learn how the process works and to also what I did with the public money public code campaign. I documented how people could get on board and how they could. For example, what I did contact local public administrations and I put this on the wiki page and I made this available to all the people out there and I talked to them and join local group meetings and introduce this that they could, for example, reach out to the public administration for the public money public code campaign. So it is also really important to break down big campaigns for them and to make it easy for people to understand what they're supposed to do and to also make it available for of course in different languages as Italo already said this is also a problem that we encounter, because on the European level we also have a lot of different languages. And yeah, not everybody understands English and also translations are really good thing to have and are really important to get people to understand what you're doing. So, so do you do you within within your work. Do you organize also the translations to happen already. Is that a key part of the work that you do. Yeah, this is one of the key parts they do as well because I'm also the translator coordinator and I do think this is also really important but I think the more important thing is to organize. Workshops and to give talks and to show people what they can do and break down a campaign for them and make it easy for them to jump in because if it's such a big step for them to jump in, for example, the public money public code campaign, reaching out to a whole government is big too big for just a local group you need to break down things and to make it easy for people to get on board. And this is even like this is, I would say the more the focus I would have. So, like, with the public money public code campaign I broke this one down to only contacting local public administrations like a small one like the university or a library, for example, so that people can have something they can grab and they can follow the steps and you can guide them. Yeah, because that's putting something out there and expecting people to jump on it to be involved. I don't think this is working you need to put it into small pieces because many people around the world doing small things, making a big movement. Yeah, they can be big movement. I think that's very important as well. Also, if you don't break it down enough, you can scare people away a little bit. Roberto, do you want to talk a little bit about what your experience is because you really sort of we followed you start a group from nothing. I know you had some challenges. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? So, I would really like to first say that I take a bit after Deb and Melissa I was really inspired by them in kind of focusing more on instead of like the stick of like hey this is all the stuff that's bad with proprietary software just like throw out a little bit more of the the carrot and pepper, you know, and just, you know, make all these like beautiful things and, you know, kind of show people how labor software can help them flourish as people, right. And I'm blessed that there was a lot of, you know, grueling work foundational work very important work that has been done before me, right. And that, you know, I noticed that, you know, that we're in a position where there's a lot of good that we can do just with, you know, the, you know, the handful of tools that we got, let's say right. And something that made me very happy recently was that I met this very beautiful intelligent Haitian woman who wanted to help promote awareness of like, you know, kind of reduce the stigma about mental health issues in the Haitian community and in Haiti as well, by making videos in FRIO. And, you know, she, again, she's very smart, she's very accomplished, and she just happened to not know that, hey, you know, you have OBS, you have kid in live, and you know, you know, you can make it happen and, you know, you know, using these tools, you know, can help you, you know, accomplish these and, you know, these great things that are so much bigger than, you know, that it's kind of about fitting, you know, where we fit into the rest of like, you know, the human experience, I guess, you know, and all that. So, yeah, it's very, it connects very much to what Bonnie is saying is that you, if you break things down into small steps, so basically starting people off with one program, two programs, and then bringing them to a larger conversation. I think that's very good. So, for Jemi or Leo, either of you, one, I'm curious, if you're now starting these conversations, if you're starting a group in France again, and if that is going better or worse than in Switzerland, because we just spoke to some French people and we know that, like, free software is quite a life there, so I'll go to I'm just thinking to move out from France again. It is not so much my country here, but that's another topic I don't want to piss off any French people I like them very much, but it's not my country. I need an English speaking country. I don't even speak the language, so no, no, this is, but I would like to step in to what Robert has said, because I find this a very interesting topic and also this can help a lot because I think we can engage the people also to really pick this low hanging foods, which are there, the software is good, we have really good, usable free software, we can present them, we can offer them just as tools to people so they have an alternative. And also what Bonnie has said, the thing with the workshops, this is something which attracts a lot of people, we have done several workshops on privacy topics, on the last workshop we have done was on self hosting, for example, how to set up your own cloud with you know host of freedom box and things like this and it was a full house. I mean, we had seats for 50 and 60 people was coming and 10 people had to stand in a row. So there's a lot of interest in that. And this is really fun also and it is really easy to pick. For me this I think that we have to continue this is always something we can do but for me this is also what I tried to mention before. For me the more difficult aspect but also in long term more sustainable aspect is how to engage those people that you have one there or that are interested, for example in political campaigns, someone who wants to do self hosting, possibly has no interest in anything political so how we want to engage this people in political campaigns. We have, I would like just to mention one example we have for example, made a little campaign this. Yeah, we cannot read your documents style. And where it was about that public organizations were sending out work documents or asking for word documents and this kind of stupid things. And we have just prepared a font we have used a free font and transformed it so you cannot read anything. And then we have written a letter with the GPL and some sentences on it and then we have written down here. This is how we feel on our side when you we get a word document for from you. And we have printed it and sent it to hundreds of public institutions in Switzerland. And this is, this is, yeah, but this is like a fun project it has a political aspect that is very important topic, but you make like a game out of it and this is I think another topic, which people possibly don't like to hear but I think it's very important. It is the gamification. You need to do something like this. You need to give also some, some goals. Okay, yeah, maybe I'm already thinking for example, yeah, to give some kind of achievements. I don't know if you know fedora they have experiments with these badges where you get this little stickers with panda bears on it and things like this. It sounds stupid, but it has a really big success, this little things because it keeps the people motivated keeps them engaged. And there's a lot of fun actually also and I think this is this is one part that we we don't have to forget because I mean I live also from free software but first of all it's the fun that has to be in the in the foregone. If we don't have fun in what we're doing, we can just stop it now. Yeah, especially if you're relying on people to to volunteer their time. Also, yeah, they need to actually enjoy what they're doing. Very important points. Yeah. Italo, do you have a lot of you have. I mean, you've been with the document foundation for a very long time. Do you do campaigns like that to help you grow? Yes, we try. Actually, we are implementing the same badge concept that Fedora has implemented. Twice a year we we organize a month of LibreOffice where we recognize contributors and people that is contributing during those months they get stickers, mugs, it depends from the numbers so they they can get they can be motivated. We try to recognize people especially when they're doing a good job in a in a specific community. We try to although we we refrain from giving titles like leader or but we try to to use them as a prefer as a prefer the point of collection of the information for their for their community. And these has proven to be very effective in in several countries. For instance, we have an extremely active community in Taiwan that started from one single person. And we we we just empowered this person and he was so enthusiastic that started to promote the software and today Taiwan is one of the most advanced examples of use of not that much LibreOffice, but the ODIF standard in the public government, which is extremely important. Of course, they most of them that are using LibreOffice but the reason why they're using LibreOffice is because as the best management of ODIF and this it's really important because we what we have realized is that basically no one is aware of the advantages of using of using real standards. On the other side I think we are not doing enough as open source in general to to promote open standards to make it clear what open standards are. But when when when we manage to have people that are decision maker around the table and explain the advantages of ODIF, you know it's like looking at us and saying, oh, but that's clear we should use ODIF. It's it's a no brainer. And then you ask what what have you have you been using for the last 10 years and they say, oh, of course we use the Microsoft formats, and we are talking at the moment in Italy with a large military body. And we provided the information and the presentation on the topic. And when they went to the to the, you know, to the top layers with this with the presentation, the guy said, oh, but if the advantages are so clear why are we still using Microsoft formats. And, and of course, then you have to say because there is a unfortunately there is a legacy of 1020 years of documents existing that cannot be ignored. So what we suggest is a is a migration path to to the new reality, which doesn't break the situation. Because we have to balance doing this kind of activities which are sometimes a little bit boring, but very useful and do some activities that are more fun for, especially for the younger generations. We will launch soon. Unfortunately, when we were ready, the lockdown started. We will start a program for universities where we will appoint the students as ambassadors. And we will give a small stipend for for six months similar more or less in the concept of what Google is doing with Google summer of code, not exactly the same because we are not. Our goal is not to develop the software, but is to create awareness of the software inside the university so talking with with teachers professors talking with students and in some cases providing reasons why to use LibreOffice for learning how to program in C or to learn how to program in Python because LibreOffice can can use macros in Python. So to different approaches according to the different to the different people. And in some cases just relating to what Leo was saying before. Of course we have to do also media outreach and that is that is something is is rather difficult that this actually is the reason why I started into open source because I have worked in in public relation for now for 42 years. And I started using open office, because I was trying to find an alternative, not to Microsoft Office in general, but to outlook that I always considered the worst piece of software ever developed by a Quadruman just to reduce the number of people that have been involved in the development because they're human beings but I say Quadrumans to reduce the number. And I stumbled upon open office and I remember I sent them an email to the to the to the project at that time it was 2003. I said, oh, you have a wonderful product but your marketing sucks. And, and I can, I can change a little bit and he said, what are you doing and say I can just engage some, some journalists on on the project in the time was completely different but I remember that in Italy we went to from 2 million downloads to 8 million downloads in a year in in less than 18 months. And he did this by by getting more coverage. Exactly. It was, you know, at the time, the, the, the way of engaging media was completely different than today today there is a lot more money involved in placing contents. There's a lot more saturation, of course. Exactly. At that time I was the first to promote an open source software. Just by sending out press release by press releases by line articles and so on. Getting interviews I remember I got a full page on so leventy quattrore which is the Italian financial daily. And that the the managing director of Microsoft was pissed off because they said we pay a lot of money in advertising and you are promoting our competitors. And the journey said but you don't have as many things to say as your competitors. So just improve the way you, you handle the media and and we will give you more space. So I was not, let's say not popular amongst Microsoft people but not even some people because I was doing this as a volunteer. And I got more coverage than a son PR agency. So the guy at son asked me to stop sending out press releases and I said, oh, you can fire me tomorrow. No problem. And they said, but you are a volunteer. We cannot fire you. You got the point. So you, you cannot fire a volunteer. So either you sit at the same table and you understand how to work together or the volunteer will kill you anyway. Thank you. That's a good, good little summary there. I wanted to ask Bonnie, Bonnie, do you how do you engage local media with your program because public money, public code is doing pretty well. In that sense, because we're hearing about it's all the way over here and I think everyone has heard about it by now. So one of the ways that you can maybe you can speak a little bit one about sort of how you use gamification to get people involved and then move into indeed how do you make sure that people know about you from a media perspective. I wouldn't say that we use that much gamification because it's more about signing the letter and then talking about it. So there's not really a price or batch that you could win from it. For example, you can of course get all the stickers. This is also really important part maybe this could be seen as some gamification because we have funny stickers and you have to share pics and everything like that. Yeah, there's still some incentive. Yeah. Yeah, so they give probably some kind of gamification but not like that was in a sense that was mentioned before with the things that you can win or so you can trust or not trust. It's also really fun thing to do to create a share pic and find the SVT file on our download server download that episode.org and do a share pic for public money public code there. And for the local media, I would say is basically just talking about them and reaching out to like publishing, for example, work that you find and that connect this one to public money public code. For example, there was this cool free software that was used in a small town in Baden-Württemberg, which is a part of Germany. And I started some Twitter somehow, I don't remember now. Anyway, and I got in contact with two people there and I talked to them and it was like, oh, this sounds really cool. Could we do an interview about this? And I also connected this of course to our public money public code campaign because it was a public administration using free software. And I did this interview. And then a few days later, one of our technical newspapers on the internet called NetsPolitik.org came over and asked me, like sent me an email. Can we reuse this because this is a really cool story. So just this made, for example, made it into the local Berlin newspaper then online in the background story there. So, yeah, that's just an example how things can work out if you talk about them and publish something that you find really interesting. Jamie, do you want to talk a little bit about if you've had any success getting local stories or sort of local media involved? No, unfortunately not. We had some media like at the time Prolinux and stuff like that who published a few information about the workshops we have done. But let's say the mass media, you know, the newspapers and so on. We never had any success to get anything published. So what do you think the challenges are in this? I don't know if it's something to do, you know, that maybe open source, you know, together with business, you know, it's more an interesting, you know, interesting topic for news media, you know, then like free software and the ethics and the moral of the software. So that makes it really difficult. In Switzerland, you know, it's federalistic. It makes it even more difficult to know to reach out to the right people to promote the software. Like in Italy, you know, it's centralistic. They decide, you know, from today, we just use free software. In Switzerland, it's like 26 regions. Everyone can do more or less what they want. It makes the same thing for public money, public code, you know, we have not been really successful in Switzerland because of the federalistic aspect of the country. But I think that's a very important point. It's very dependent on the country, how the country's sort of press system is built as well. And yeah, please. Because it's not completely to have some press coverage, but from my experience is very successful when you target, at least from my experience in Switzerland, but also in Germany, it's very good when you target this local press, this town press or region press. And when you have a topic where they are involved, because I give you just a little example, one of our fellows, Ralf has made a project where he has tracked OpenStreetMap together with pupils in a school project. So he had this project week in the school and he went out together with pupils and tracked OpenStreetMap tracks. And this had been covered in the local press because it's the local school which was involved. It is something with kids. It's the pupils which were involved. So this kind of things work very good. For example, I have had a project where I was collecting old laptops and then installing new links and giving them away for free to students and pupils again. And this, I had really good local media coverage with this and really big success. I mean, hundreds of people called me afterwards and said, hey, I have a laptop or I want a laptop. And this kind of things are very successful. I think this cannot be underestimated. I'm sure when you want to get in New York Times or things like this, then you have to have bombshell news. But it's not about this. I think these little news magazines, these local news magazines are so widespread. And I also did not expect that a lot of people still read this kind of things. Also, these magazines that you get for free in the postbox, I'm not sure if they exist in your country, but in Switzerland they exist. Yes. I think those are very important points and I want to add to that. So I also believe that local press is doing a lot. And I lived in Australia a little bit and one of the things that worked really well there was going to the local cinema and putting your flyers there. Little things. They can be really, really helpful and really successful to just help you spread the word. There are multiple ways of doing that. And when we were talking about students, every university, every student's organization has usually their own channels, their own outlets, their own newspapers in some cases even. And it depends, of course, on the size of the organization that you are, how much reach you're going to find as well. So I think indeed, underestimating local attention would be amiss. I'm going to move to Roberto and ask you if you had any successes that you think sort of helped you spread the word locally. So this funny story first, when it was just me and I first started, I got this weird idea. I was like, let me see what happens if I just shoot this guy from MPR with a quick email and see what he says. And he was like, yeah, you know what? That sounds really interesting. Let me hear more about your work. I didn't have any work to tell him about. I'll say, all right, I'll get to that. And what I've realized is that people really want to hear about this stuff. And I think it's just a matter of packaging it up and whatever is relevant to that. And something that's kind of, I'm seeing here, I'm thinking about this now. You know, we're talking a lot about like, you know, older media, you know, there's a lot of like, you know, like kids with like hundreds of thousands, you know, millions of, you know, eyeballs on them. And they're just people, you know, so I feel like that's something that, you know, we can maybe leverage, you know, or, you know, I'm going to think about leveraging that to an extent, you know, I mean, it's already there. You know, we can maybe like, say some people already use like some more interesting stuff. And, you know, if you get those big heads, like, kind of say, hey, you know, this is, this is, this is something that's cool. Interesting, you know, then, you know, so something. So the people that are in your group, Roberto, how did you find like, what were your first steps of outreach? So the very first person, so the very first person that was in my group was someone that was already kind of an FSF member. So, you know, you guys helped me find that. So definitely if you start a group reach out to the FSF, you know, become an associate member and, you know, they'll help you out to get it rolling at least. And then it was a lot of kind of me going out there meeting people and word of mouth. And then once the pandemic hit, the nice thing that happened was that since a lot of people just kind of shifted online and it happened to, you know, have a few things up on GitLab and some of the members set stuff up on GitLab and, you know, some other code repositories and stuff, then I had the website set up and everything, then, you know, we just kind of started getting a couple of people just kind of like kind of like poking around on the internet at finding us. And so that's really important to have like, just, you know, stuff out there too and like, you know, well documented and appealing, I guess, you know, so, yeah. Yes, so one of the things of what we can do as the FSF is indeed if you are starting a local group, you can reach out to the FSF and I'm sure the FSFE would do the same. As you can reach out to us and we will help you connect to our channel so via our subscriber list and things like that to see if we can help you find members that want to join your group. Let's me. So the Libre Planet mailing list. Yes, and the Libre Planet Wiki page, of course, you can also register in there and so there are many ways. But they help you discuss that you can sign up from the Libre Planet's website is a very active list with a lot of very active community members that you can also just ask questions to. So I think that's also, and that brings me sort of to another thing is how do you talk to people that don't know what you do or don't know what you're talking about. Maybe, Jami, I'll start with you and then I'll move to Bonnie. How do you start the conversation with someone to convince them? You know, usually I don't start the conversations. What we have is people, you know, getting in touch with us, for example, at the repair cafes, where we make new linux installations for free. And they come with a certain problem. They don't like Zoom because of spyware and so on. Or they have an old computer they cannot upgrade with Windows, whatever version in these. And so we try, you know, to take their problems and then give them a solution and then assure them that the software will do. The Libre Office is compatible with Microsoft. It's an open format and so on. And usually I'm less patient, so I'm working with Enrico, he's a 72 years old biologist who helps me. He is the one who really takes time to explain about the movement and why what is the ethical aspects of this. And then we say, you know, what if you're satisfied with the software, you know, please try to convince your friends and your families to also to make the switch. So I don't go around, you know, moralizing and portalizing anymore. I wait until people come to me basically. And Bonnie. Yeah, sorry. I would just add to this that, first of all, it's not to moralize and to talk to people like you are both then. So it's also really important that people show some interest, interest into your topics and willing to learn about what you're doing and what you're standing for. And then I would say would start with the basics, like, for example, how I did it with the example that I had written for all the local groups to talk to local public administrations. I first explained the four freedoms, meaning what free software like chair improve. I'm sorry. And read the code. So study and use. Yeah, so I would start with this and then I would also explain what are the advantages of using free software for them directly, for example, that they wouldn't have to reinvent the deal. And that if it's taxpayers monies, it should be public code. So yeah, just going with the basics and keeping it easy. I think that's really important to if you talk to people who are not yet informed about what you're talking. And is it your in your experience are people has because free software, of course, is it appeals to developers or people that are a little bit more technically inclined. So how do you, how do you explain to them that they can do a lot and that they that this is something that is really important to them as well. In case I would say that, for example, if you encounter a problem for software, yes, and it's a proprietary software as loads of administrations are public administrators out there using it. Then you can't easily fix it because you need to talk to the company selling you the software and you can't just give the code to somebody else and say, well, please improve this and this for me and public administrations as well as individuals out there need sometimes a special tool or need one to have something special and in a software or improve it or have a special function in it. Then this is really important that you can do this on your own and this is a huge advantage that everybody, even a single individual can have. Like for example, big button, which is also a software, you can use it in so many ways that there are no disadvantages for anybody. So this I think this is really important if you talk to people who are not really from the tech community into them that free software is not only there for tech people. It is also there for all the people out there not being technical skilled and yeah, it tries to make your life easier. Yeah, and then of course it's connected to a much greater story as well and that software is so ingrained these days in every aspect of our lives that you can't really talk about anything without including the software that you're using. Italo is this something that you run into? Like what do you say to non developers that approach you about wanting to help? What can they do? I am a non developer. So it's easy for me. I have a degree in humanities and my degree goes back to 1978. So PC didn't exist. My thesis was typewritten and let's say that I grew up without computers. And so when I first met the computer, my first computer was 27. And sorry, you were 27 years old when you when you had your first computer. Yes, yes, that was 81 and it was rather early because I had I was either I think by mistake by an IT company that was annual at the time because I was a journalist. So they wanted me to explain technology to non technical people. And after that, it's not so difficult. If you if you put yourself, I mean, I'm a user so it's not difficult for me to look at technology under the user point of view. And it's not even difficult for someone non technical like me to develop some understanding of technology. Because it's not so complicated. Of course, I'm not I'm totally unable to develop. And actually developers are very happy that I don't even look at the code because they fear that they can destroy everything just by looking at the code and not talking and not putting my hands on it. But it's, you know, when people ask me and they call in in Italy, we are used to give titles to people even if you don't know that they have a title. So when I attend, I often talk at events. And when I am at events, they tell me they call me engineer, which means is a kind of title like engineer with a degree in a school of engineering. And when I say not not exactly ever degree in humanities, which in it in Italian sounds even worse because we we don't have the term humanities we we use the term literature. So basically my degree in Italian is degree in literature. And then I say I'm over 60. And I use a I've been using now a Linux computer for years. And they look at me and say, how do you make it and say because I have a neuron connected to my ends and that's all you need to use free software is just to to use you use software like any other software there's nothing difficult, nothing different. Of course, if you want to set up a big server, that's a different story, but just no one would ask a user to set up a server. And then they I make the example of cars. Most cars today run on a Linux on embedded Linux. And so I when I say I tell people, you know that you are using Linux basically because when today if you have an automatic gear. Actually, probably 99% that is embedded Linux that is managing the gears for you. Why you accelerate and you decelerate and they say, oh, so I'm a Linux user I say yes you are. And so you shouldn't be scared because that gear or that breaks or that friction, which is basic base on Linux is a lot more dependable than the mechanical one. The mechanical one can really fall apart while the digital one reduces the number of pieces and therefore makes it more robust. So it's but if you think we have Linux in in many appliances around us and and many people are using Linux without realizing that they're using Linux. Most smart TVs are Linux based. And just tell your neighbor, you know that you are you're a Linux user are you looking at Netflix on your TV. Probably the answer is yes. And then you can tell Netflix as Linux servers that stream a digital signal to your TV which is a which is a Linux terminal basically. Yeah, I think I think that's failed right now. Can you still hear us or not at all. I can hear you but there is nothing. Okay, okay. We will wait. All right. Oh, cool. We're back. I'm just going to summarize a little bit I think what it was saying was that it's very helpful in your conversation about free software and getting people introduced into the free software story. It's a talk about how free software is already ingrained in a lot of people's lives and in a lot of people's systems without them knowing about it how new Linux is at the core of a lot of systems. Of course that doesn't make those systems free so we don't want to get them too much credit for that but it is true that it really sort of is everywhere and that we that I think people don't necessarily understand that. Leo, maybe you can talk also a little bit about how you introduce people to the concept of you for a new free software. Yeah, I have a little bit different concept or I think a little bit different in this kind of things I have also sort of like this year before but I've changed a bit my view. I'm also a technical person. I work also in tech and I like tech but when I introduce people to free software and never use technology. Nearly never. That's very interesting. Yeah, I think the political or the philosophical aspect behind free software is much more important. And this is where we get us the people of course people are interested in in Linux and students like to hack and have something they can can work with and it is a better operating system actually. This is, it's just a fact, but to keep a long term engagement and to keep the people really understand and think what is behind the whole free software ecosystem. You need to come more from the, at least I do it like this. I, I try to convince more from the political and freedom aspect, because as you have said it, we have Linux everywhere now everybody's. Yeah, I don't know the, the number of Android phones in the world, but it's a lot. Everybody's using Linux and they are in chains if they don't use a free Android version for example. So only using using free software does not mean you are free when it's not the ethical aspect behind it. Then there might be a free software component in it, but the users are still in chains. So that makes no sense. So there has to be an awareness. And with this awareness comes, at least for me came a deep insight. When I started using free software came a deep insight why I want to do this, why I'm doing this and why I'm fighting for it. And, and I think this is very important point we have to transfer also to the people. Yeah, I, I think that's a very good point to be speaking to people's philosophical if you convince them from a philosophical perspective or from an ethical perspective. You also like anyone can find their own truths in that and anyone can find their own connections to that because that also shows that indeed you don't have to be technical to believe that software should be ethical. I am going to give the word to to Roberto like how you do a little bit of that outreach and then I'm afraid we're already going to have to round up soon. So, but how do you like, and then I'm going to give the word to Greg a little bit. I know they're waiting to do a little bit of speaking on the FSF's behalf when it comes to local group organizations. So, how was it for you to start a conversation about people and how do you convince them that they don't need to be developers. So, my experience has been really that if you're kind of just like living the life and putting yourself out there in a positive way, right. People get very curious. Right. So, you know, I had no spy break for like, you know, longest and, you know, I would still be out there and people are amazed. Right. How do you function, you know, how do you like, you know, and that opens up things like that or like, you know, why are you using the new wire. Other stuff. So that really opens the door to, you know, hey, this is like, this is better for you. Right. This is better for you. So that's kind of the approach I take normally because the thing is that I really like the philosophy. I get, you know, really into all that and, you know, trying to break things down in different ways. But ultimately, I'm barely smart enough to understand it. And, you know, I try to like, just find, you know, what motivates these like different people and try to kind of see where free software kind of fits into that. And, you know, and just a kind of funny point is just that, you know, you'll, you'll meet people that are like, you know, millionaires and they're like super fit and like, you know, they never miss a day at the gym and, you know, they're so green all these aspects of their lives. And, you know, they're like, oh wait, but like, you know, there's no way I can, you know, stop using this one app, you know, and he was like, come on, really, like, you know, you can, you can do it. You know, you can, you can like, you have that power, obviously, you know, so that's kind of how I approach it. Nice. Transcending. I'm going to, before I give the word to Graham, I'm going to ask if anyone has anything else to add that we feel that we haven't covered that we should have covered that is very important when it comes to local group organization. Could I add something? Yeah. I think that like, there were many points mentioned there and all of those points are really relevant, but I would like to mention that the movement is really diverse and it's always really important that every organization times their own way to connect with their local community and their local groups and how to motivate them. Yeah. I think this is also something important and ongoing. This is something that is really important. I also think that that's very important and I also think it's, it's, you don't have to think big. You can think small and you can start small and free software is very much about community so think about your own community and what are the things that matter to them and then talk to them about that. Great. I think, I mean, I want to thank everyone already in advance. I know Greg will also thank you again for joining in this conversation. I like, I learn a lot from everyone else's experiences and I love hearing about how the things that you run into internationally and I wish I could listen to every single one of you all day. I'm going to give the word to Greg a little bit. Greg. I mean, just listening to everybody speak has been really. I mean, I know that we're the FSF campaign scene, but often just listening to people's stories of, you know, being a local volunteer is like, well, it feels our way. We do this full time, but, you know, often there are so many things that we can learn from community efforts because it was local groups like that, you know, the software kind of spread, right? I mean, at least in the 90s because people just couldn't go to whatever website, download a canoe. It was all about that local outreach. And I think, especially now, you know, the quarantine watching everyone become more and more remote, more and more locked down. So I think that the FSF has gotten us thinking that, you know, the FSF needs to do something to support all these efforts. So like when the, when it's safe to gather in person, we want to be ready to hit the ground running when it comes to encouraging more software adoption, encouraging more local free software groups to be to announce that we're going to be putting to local free software groups. We're going to help them in their organizational expenses, holding meetings. Really, anything we can help them, like especially new ones, get up to the ground running and rebuild ones. We just want to let everybody know that the FSF is here to help. So I'm excited to be offering some reimbursement expenses with the local groups. You know, if you're planning a meeting and you needed to rent a space or do this and you contact the FSF. We'll be able to help you out with the monetary aspects of that. So that's really something that we're pretty excited about revealing. Because it's just, yeah, as I mentioned before, it's just been so kind of disheartening on the one hand to see how many people have not turned to proprietary software to an increase to work before because of the quarantine. But when people are safe to gather again, we really want to those local efforts. And so, and you're starting a new group. One thing we do do as we mentioned earlier is we use our internal subscriber list to send message to people in your area who might be interested. So I remember one of the first sent as an FSF staff member was about a free software group in Denmark. And so we know the free software community in Denmark, you know, they may have said, oh, yes, mail me about things that are going on in my area. So you can rely on us to send that information to hopefully connect you with people that you may not have been aware of before. And there's also, of course, always the lead replacement, which is where the a lot of these groups have most of their organizational presence. But also, as Roberto mentioned earlier, they discuss the general mailing list is like a constantly great source of topics to be writing about. And to share with the wider free software community. It's also a good place to find the people who might be in your area who, you know, didn't really know about. So, yeah, I'm really excited to say that we'll be we'll be doing this reimbursement program. If you're interested, we're still working on the criteria. But if you are in some city where you that there's a free software group or there's was one before. And it was, you know, it's last activity was a long time ago to write us at campaigns at fsf.org. And we'll be on the program because, like I said, when everything is as back to normal as it's ever going to be together again. I think we both the fsf we and we as the free software community kind of come together and encourage adoption, free software adoption and advocacy for these local groups. So that's something we're pretty stuck about. And thanks everybody again, it was really great to hear from everybody. I know I was a little bit. Mostly because I didn't want to mess up with the organization of everything, but it was real hard to hear everybody and it was really inspiring to us as members of the for sure. Yeah, and I want to I want to thank. I know Kelt just couldn't make it one of our free software supporters from Denmark, who jumped in just a little bit too late. It would have been great to listen to as well. We also had Christina. We had, I had so many people respond really nicely to joining this conversation. And I want to start, of course, thank all of you, Bonnie, Jamie, Leo, Italo and Roberto, all of you so much for for joining us in this. What I'll do is I will watch this again, and then I will make a little summary. I'll write up something trying to summarize some of the lessons that we learned today. And then we'll publish that with the on on one of the FSF blogs because I think that's definitely worth it. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you, everyone. We're going to move to the next talk is John Sullivan, our executive director who will speak a little bit as to his 35 years or his 16 years, but our 35 years of FSF and then I guess some of the projects that we're working on. Thank you again to all of you for joining us. I know this is a crazy times also one being online to all of the time differences. So I'm very excited that we were able to make this work. Thank you. Thank you. I'm inviting. Bye. Thank you. Bye bye.