Thanks to Fedora Project sponsorship, last week I had the awesome experience of once again hanging out with other fedora contributors in LATAM. For a few days. fedoras from Brazil, Argentina, Uruguai, Venezuela and Peru joined hands to promote Free Software through Fedora and affiliated projects at the largest Free Software event in Latin America; FISL, the International Free Software Forum. "According to a report from FISL organizing committee, there were 388 speeches comprising 508 hours. FISL General Coordinator Ricardo Fritsch stressed the huge participation of the public and the high level of speeches and panels presented." Over 6.017 people, from several different countries, came to participate in what is the largest event around here.
The best thing about these events is that they make up a reason for people with similar interests to get together. Therefore, there couldn't be a better definition of the good moments I had in FISL. I had the opportunity to meet in real life people I had been talking in a daily basis for ages, apart from meeting again friends that most of our contact happens through the internet. Not that our daily conversations aren't interesting, but the times I spent discussing all sort of things with you guys were priceless. Sérgio Durigan is among the ones I had never met in real life, though we're always in touch through IRC (Freenode #software-livre). Apart from him, once again I had the chance to meet Alexandre Oliva who almost ten years ago introduced me to what free software really means. I owe him a lot for the knowledge I possess on what regards free software. Apart from considering them to be among the most active free software activists in Brazil, there is another reason for being quotting them here tonight. Along with them, I had the terrible experience of being attacked with rage and hatred by people, for no other reason than being a free software supporter.
Unfortunately, there are people who happen to be the reflect of mailing list threads and social networks posts. They don't participate in the discussion. They read opinions of random people, take it as truth and look for the pray to attack with such a thing. They don't even care who you are or what you think. They just want someone to attack. We were leaving the auditorium when suddenly someone jumped out of nowhere saying random things about random subjects regarding the FOSS community. After a while of talking to this guy, neither Luciana Fujii, Sérgio or I could understand what was his purpose. He had rage in his words and apart from that, we weren't sure of anything else. Sérgio had the idea of inviting Oliva to our discusion but it seems things only got worse at first. The guy had lots of [uknown to all of us] complaints against Red Hat and kept treating Oliva and Sergio as if they were RED HAT ITSELF. YOU did that. YOU do that. THIS is it. THAT isnt it. After a while watching the discussion, it was easy to understand what was going on. This guy had been a victim of the trolls we see everyday on the internet. Even though he seemed to be very sure of everything he was telling us, it was pretty clear he didn't now ANYTHING about free software. First he said something wasn't free software because if wasn't free of cost. Then, he said RHEL packages aren't free because they are not in GitHub (O__o). Well, his mind was completely confused and the hatred in his words made it, in my humble opinion, impossible to have a pleasent conversation.
After some time, Sergio and I left for lunch. We didn't really talk about this mess during lunch, but we did talk about free software, computer science and several other subjects. At least an hour had passed. But then, when I was walking back to the Fedora booth, I saw Oliva and the guy, still discussing those topics. I couldn't believe it.. It seems that, at the end, he did not change his mind, and left which is sad. Not the fact that he did not agree, but the way it happened. Why so angry?
Unfortunately, it wasn't the only episode. The other day, around our booth, I noticed lots of people getting together. There were at least 20 people together looking at something. Well, I *am* curious :-D So I got closer and noticed there was this TV with some game going on. I'm not really a gamer so I couldn't tell what that specific game was. I asked someone and to my surprise, I was told it was Dota. I've never played Dota but I do know it is non-free software. I got really disappointed that the event was supporting this kind of activity, after all there was some infrastructure around the TV. It wasn't a random participant playing a game in his notebook. It was a show! I left to share what had ocurred with my friends who value software freedom only to see that more and more people ended up joining the crowd. When Sergio and I came back, there were at least 30 people, I think (and well, his booth was 5m from mine so I didn't take too long to get there).
Sergio knew the guy, so he approached and asked for the source code in a funny way. After all, they knew each other. The guy replied in a rude way saying that it wasn't only Dota. He was running it on Microsoft Windows. After that, there wasn't much to do, but to lament it. When I was about to leave then, I heard this guy saying in a really sarcastic way: Asking for the source code? I wanna ask him the source code of "Red Hat".
Knowing that he meant RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) it didn't take me half a second to reply: ftp.redhat.com. Public and anonymous. Go there and take whatever you want. It's free, not only of cost. I think I caught him off-guard, cause after that he kinda thought twice before saying the next few words. Well, give me a free copy of "Red Hat" then, to what I replied: It is FREE software. Download it, compile it, have it! Though free software does not mean everybody must have a copy of a free software, it wasn't the time to discuss that. Together with him, while we changed these phrases, some people in the crowd started supporting him and the player. I felt terrible as if that was NOT my place. Maybe, it wasn't. Maybe people who value software freedom should not be in the International Free Software Forum. Maybe asking for the source code in such a place is a terrible offense...
But maybe not! Even if the public was misguided, as free software activists, it was OUR duty to do such things. That is the reason for why I don't regret at all having taken part in such events, even if they are really sad. So much has been going on, so many advancements for free software... And we still have to defend our right to software freedom in a free software event..
Afterwards, we found out that those TVs were for the Mozilla party that took place later that day, and that the guy was in the mozilla booth. I refused to join their party that day, mostly because I felt a bit bad. It was my first FISL and for sure I had heard some bad things. But I never expected to see promotion of non-free software in a TV at the heart of the event, in the exposition area. Because of the fedora booth, during the party, I was somewhat close to the party. A few friends invited me to come closer and take a picture in the party. The TV, together with a notebook, was taking pictures of the party. I kinda agreed for a second but completely refused when I saw that the link for the picture and some other information were being posted on Twitter for every single picture. What's next? Facebook? Well, yes. Facebook got a lot of [positivo] attention and support from FISL.
I don't know what else to say.. This post was mainly to share these thoughts and feelings. In my next post, I will talk about my talk, Fedora and my duties in FISL.
See ya!