Thursday the Free Software Foundation blogged about this year's 47 'LibreLocal 2026' meetups, highlighting 10 that took place in Australia, Mexico, the United States, New Zealand, Cameroon, Switzerland, Spain, Argentina, China, and Iran. "Far from each other in many parts of the world, they came together around one unifying belief: free software."
We envisioned LibreLocal as a collage of in-person community meetups that would bring people together to swap ideas, learn from each other, and celebrate free software. When we asked the free software community to organize LibreLocals last year, the response was very inspirational: 29 different meetups were hosted. After we made the global call this year, we were greeted with an even more enthusiastic response... Organizers hosted LibreLocals in cafes, bars, restaurants, libraries, universities, a computer repair shop, and even as part of a field trip to the System Source Museum, a museum dedicated to the history of computing in Hunt Valley, Maryland, USA.
We also learned that a LibreLocal was organized inside Vakil Abad Prison in Mashhad, Iran by a free software supporter. Originally planned to be held in Shiraz, we were informed of this change in location on the LibreLocal wiki page set up for listing all LibreLocals. The updated entry, by another free software supporter in Iran, reads:
"This year, one of our dedicated activists organized a LibrePlanet event from within prison in Iran. Currently serving a sentence for "cyber-crimes" related to his promotion of free software, he continues to introduce the principles of software freedom to his fellow inmates. We have placed this banner to honor his resilience and the community of individuals in prison who continue to stand for technological freedom. His identity will be revealed when it is safe to do so."
Advocating for user freedom should never result in a prison sentence. We especially admire and respect the bravery and strength of those who fight for software freedom in the most dangerous and oppressive of environments.
50 people attended the LibreLocal meetup in Switzerland, according to one of the organizers, "forging connections between several local free software stakeholders and strengthening their cohesion." But the FSF's blog post stresses these are "ten stories among many more of free software supporters from across the globe... We also thank you our donors and associate members for the support that makes such meetups possible."
The GNU Press Shop is now open through July 19 for their biannual fundraiser, offering a variety of freedom-respecting novelties including an FSF-branded antisurveillance webcam guard and both technical and philosophical books, like Richard Stallman's Free as in Freedom (which allegedly has turned up in Anthropic's training data). Other items include a slick new FSF logo sticker, a brass and zinc GNU "emblem" pin with real gold plating, and a cheeky sticker reminding everyone that "There is no cloud." And there's even a plush GNU toy.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
