Jonas Öberg (born 22 November 1977 in

Norrköping Norrköping ( , ) is a city in the province of Östergötland in eastern Sweden and the seat of Norrköping Municipality, Östergötland County, about 160 km southwest of the national capital Stockholm, 40 km east of county seat Lin ...

, 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 The Free Software Foundation Europe e.V. (FSFE) is an organization that supports free software and all aspects of the free software movement in Europe, with registered chapters in several European countries. It is a registered voluntary associat ...

GNU Project The GNU Project ( ) is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and Computer hardware, computing dev ...

FSCONS 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, Sweden. It shares many similarities with FOSDEM (Free and Open source Software ...

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

and the

Shuttleworth Foundation Shuttleworth may refer to: * Shuttleworth (surname) * Shuttleworth, Greater Manchester (historically in Lancashire), a hamlet at the northeastern extremity of the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, England * Shuttleworth (canvassing) * The Shuttleworth ...

. He started to develop software in 1991 and installed his first Linux operating system in 1993 after which he eventually joined as a webmaster for the

. In the late 1990s, he spent some time at the MIT AI Labs where he met with

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 ...

and others from the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

, joining them for The Bazaar conference in New York. Since 2002, he has been on the award committee for the

's Free Software Awards. In 2001, he was a founding member of the

and took up a role as vice president on 22 November 2001 when former vice president Loïc Dachary took a step back to focus on

GNU Savannah GNU Savannah is a project of the Free Software Foundation initiated by Loïc Dachary, which serves as a collaborative software development management system for free software projects. Savannah currently offers CVS, GNU arch, Subversion, Git, Me ...

. Having worked with

for several years, including running a course of fundraising at the Peer to Peer University, he became the first Regional Coordinator for Europe in 2011. His work for the organisation eventually led him to a position as a Fellow of the

where his work focus on creating tools and prototypes for the embedding of metadata for licensing and attribution requirements in digital works. His company Commons Machinery was featured as one of the 12 winners of Tech All Stars 2014, a competition of the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

's and

Neelie Kroes Neelie Kroes (; born 19 July 1941) is a retired Dutch politician of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and businessperson who served as European Commissioner from 22 November 2004 to 1 November 2014. Kroes studied Economics at ...

's Digital Agenda.

Personal life

He has a 19th-century wooden house in the North of Sweden which he is continuously renovating and lives outside of

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

Gnesta Gnesta () is a bimunicipal Urban areas in Sweden, locality and the seat of Gnesta Municipality, Södermanland County, Sweden with 6,376 inhabitants in 2020. Gnesta is located in Södermanland, on the border to Stockholm County. As situated near t ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. He marrie
Julia Velkova
a media researcher and member of

Internet Society The Internet Society (ISOC) is an American non-profit advocacy organization founded in 1992 with local chapters around the world. It has offices in Reston, Virginia, United States, and Geneva, Switzerland. Organization The Internet Society ...

Bulgaria, at the

Ice hotel An ice hotel is a temporary hotel made up of snow and sculpted blocks of ice. Ice hotels, dependent on sub-freezing temperatures, are constructed from ice and snow and typically have to be rebuilt every year. Ice hotels exist in several countri ...

in Sweden on 8 March 2013.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oberg, Jonas Open source advocates Free software programmers GNU people Copyright activists Open content activists 1977 births Living people People from Norrköping