- What is the Free Software Festival?
The festival is a national gathering of various communities interested in Free Software. Over the three days, there will be several presentations, panels, and workshops.
The festival is organized by ANSOL - Associação Nacional para o Software Livre (National Association for Free Software) in collaboration with various Portuguese communities.
The main goal of these events is to promote Free Software within the Portuguese community.
ANSOL has been actively involved in organizing and collaborating on Install Parties and events related to Free Software in various locations across the country. This association has maintained intense activity with the European Commission and Parliament, as well as with the Portuguese Government and Parliamentarians, to ensure the legislative conditions that allow the development of Free Software in the EU and Portugal.
- What's happening at the festival
- Talks on technology, politics, business and society
- Round tables and panel discussions with the audience
- Workshops and knowledge exchange
- Community meetings
- Demos
- Who can attend?
The festival is open to everyone, from all backgrounds and professions, regardless of gender, age, religion or political convictions.
The important thing is to come equipped with a good mood and a curious mind.- How much is it?
Admission is free.
Meals and accommodation are not included.
There may be stalls with products for sale.- What is Free Software?
Free Software is software that grants us the freedom to use, study, modify, and redistribute it without any imposed restrictions. These four freedoms are necessary to respect the autonomy and rights of the people who use the software.
When we use programs that do not grant us these freedoms (proprietary software), control remains exclusively with the provider of the program. The Free Software movement focuses on freeing people from this power imbalance.
With Free Software, it becomes possible for each community to improve or customize programs according to their needs without needing any authorization from the original creator. There is also better control and scrutiny of how information accessed by the programs is handled. For example, with Free Software, it is not necessary to pay for licenses every time the program is installed on a new computer.
Free Software is not exclusive to GNU/Linux: there are many programs available for all operating systems, including Windows, Android, and MacOS.
- What is GNU/Linux?
GNU/Linux (often simply called Linux) is an operating system composed of Free Software components. Although the most well-known is GNU/Linux, there are many other Free Software operating systems, such as OpenBSD.
Since Free Software can be altered and redistributed by anyone, there are numerous Linux distributions to choose from: Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Alpine Linux, etc. GNU/Linux distributions include various everyday applications, such as web browsers, office programs (word processors, spreadsheets, etc.), audio/image/video editing software, and even some games.