Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit (FSCONS) is a Nordic conference trying to bridge the gap between software and cultural freedom held each autumn in

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. It shares many similarities with

FOSDEM Free and Open source Software Developers' European Meeting (FOSDEM) is a non-commercial, volunteer-organized European event centered on free and open-source software development. It is aimed at developers and anyone interested in the free and ...

(Free and Open source Software Developers' European Meeting) in the way in which the event is structured, but where the latter attracts speakers and visitors primarily interested in

Free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

, FSCONS aims to attract a more diverse crowd. The conference was organised 2007-2011 by FFKP, the Society for Free Culture and Software. In 2012, a new member run association was formed to take over the organisation of conference.

Conference history

The event was first organised by members of the

Free Software Foundation Europe The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is an ''eingetragener Verein'' (registered voluntary association) under German law. It was founded in 2001 to support all aspects of the free software movement in Europe, with registered chapters in seve ...

, in particular its Swedish team and the then current intern in their Gothenburg office. It was organised the 7–8 December 2007 and attracted about 80 visitors. Some of the speakers were

Jonas Öberg Jonas Öberg (born 22 November 1977 in Norrköping, Sweden) is a free and open-source software activist, describing himself as an instigator in the world of free, having worked with the Free Software Foundation Europe, GNU Project, FSCONS, Creat ...

, Mats Östling, Lars Aronsson and

Georg C. F. Greve Georg C. F. Greve (born 10 March 1973 in Helgoland, Germany) is a software developer, physicist, author and currently co-founder and president at Vereign. He has been working on technology politics since he founded the Free Software Foundation ...

. Through the years 2008-2011, the conference was organised once a year, always in October or November. In 2008, the

FSFE The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is an ''eingetragener Verein'' (registered voluntary association) under German law. It was founded in 2001 to support all aspects of the free software movement in Europe, with registered chapters in seve ...

was joined by Wikimedia Sverige and Creative Commons Sweden as co-organisers of the event. Notable speakers over the years include

Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman (; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...

Smári McCarthy Smári McCarthy (; born 7 February 1984) is an Icelandic-Irish politician, innovator and information activist known for his work relating to direct democracy, transparency and privacy. Early life McCarthy was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, the ...

Oscar Swartz Per Oscar Swartz (December 1, 1959) is a Swedish entrepreneur, writer and blogger. Oscar Swartz was born in Solna, Stockholm County. He is the great-grandson of the former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Swartz, and a second cousin of the publis ...

, Dr. Ansgar Bernardi, Christina Haralanova,

Amelia Andersdotter Amelia Anna Matilda Katarina Andersdotter (born 30 August 1987 in Uppsala) is a Swedish politician and former Member of the European Parliament (2011–2014), elected on the Pirate Party list in the 2009 election. Personal life Amelia Ande ...

Marcin Jakubowski Marcin Jakubowski founded Open Source Ecology (OSE) in 2003. Jakubowski is an advocate of open source hardware as a foundation for the open source economy - particularly distributed manufacturing, open source agriculture, and open source produ ...

, Erik Zachte,

Edmund Harriss Edmund Orme Harriss (born 1976 in Worcester, UK) is a British mathematician,Karin Kosina, Henri Bergius,

Glyn Moody Glyn Moody is a London-based technology writer. He is best known for his book '' Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution'' (2001). It describes the evolution and significance of the free software and open source movements with interviews ...

, Erik de Bruijn, and, Alessandro Rubini, to mention a few. In 2012 the member-run association Föreningen FSCONS was formed to take over the organisation of the conference from FFKP. The conference has continued to be held in November each year.

Nordic Free Software Award

and is presenting the winner of the yearly Nordic Free Software Award, given to the person/project that have made a contribution to the advancement of Free Software in the Nordic countries. The jury consists of member from

and Föreningen fri kultur och programvara (Free Culture and Software) and members from the free software community.

Winners

* 2007 :

Skolelinux Skolelinux/Debian-Edu is a Linux distribution intended for educational use and a Debian Pure Blend. The free and open source software project was founded in Norway in 2001 and is now being internationally developed. Its name is a direct transla ...

* 2008 : Mats Östling * 2009 : Simon Josefsson &

Daniel Stenberg Magnus Daniel Stenberg is a Swedish developer, recipient of the Polhem Prize 2017 for his work on cURL. He was born and raised in Huddinge, a suburb south of Sweden's capital Stockholm. He created a utility which, after various name and licens ...

* 2010 : Bjarni Rúnar Einarsson * 2011 : Erik H. Josefsson * 2012 : Otto Kekäläinen and Ole Tange

References

External links

Official website fscons.org

FSCONS conference blog

Summaries of previous FSCONS conferences
* Press mentions *
"Frihetskämpar möts i Göteborg" (ComputerSweden - Swedish) 2011-11-11 17:00
*
"Hallå Håkan Lidbo!" (GP - Swedish) 2011-11-11
*
"Fri programvara en väg till arbetarmakt" (Fria tidningen - Swedish) 2010-11-11 10:05
*
"När kommer öppen hårdvara?" (ComputerSweden - Swedish) 2010-11-17 16:06
*
"Solidarisk programvara" (Fria tidningen - Swedish) 2011-05-04 08:00
*
"Konferens som vidgar samtalet" (Fria tidningen - Swedish) 2011-05-18 08:00
*
"Nördfeministisk kraftsamling" (Fria tidningen - Swedish) 2011-05-18 08:00
*
"Das Openmoko-Projekt um die gleichnamige freie Handyplattform lädt im Rahmen der FSCONS in Göteborg, Schweden" (Linux Magazine - German) 2008-10-08
*

** ttp://www.fria.nu/artikel/85811 "Konferens om fri programvara" (Fria tidningen - Swedish) 2010*
"Teknikjournalisten och författaren Glyn Moody till Sverige" (Webfinanser - Swedish) 2010-10-19 13:51
*
"Linux-Norge overhaler Danmark indenom" (Computerworld - Danish) 2007-12-12
*
"Späckat schema på FSCONS i Göteborg" (ComputerWorld/LinuxWorld - Swedish) 2007-12-12
*
"U-landsdatorn blev hans stora hobby" (ComputerSweden - Swedish) 2007-12-11
*
"Skolelinux fikk pris for fri programvare" (Computerworld - Norwegian) 2007-12-10
{{FOSS Linux conferences Free-software conferences Recurring events established in 2007