Free software

For free, libre and open-source software, culture and the arts

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  Federated networks, Fediverse

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  Constant, artist-run nonprofit for copyleft and feminisms, Brussels

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  Varia, cooperative for everyday technology, Rotterdam

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  Art Meets Radical Openness, festival for art, hacktivism and open cultures, Linz

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  Piksel, festival for kunst og fri teknologi, Bergen

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  Community servers

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  Self-hosted / Shadow Libraries

• Sunil Abraham
• Access Space
• Adhocracy (exhibition)
• AMRO
• Amelia Andersdotter
• APO33
• Raphaël Bastide
• Manetta Berends
• Jan-Christoph Borchardt
• Michal Cáb
• Calafou
• André Castro
• Catalyst Radio
• Joana Chicau
• Community servers
• Constant
• Ginger Coons
• Disclosures
• Donestech
• Marc Dusseiller
• Eclectic Tech Carnival
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• F/LAT
• Fediverse
• FISL
• Flossie
• FOSDEM
• Luka Frelih
• Gisle Frøysland
• FSCONS
• Furtherfield
• @gnd
• Peter Gonda
• GOTO10
• Artemis Gryllaki
• Alex Gunn
• Hackers At Large
• Hackteria
• Haip
• Christina Haralanova
• Graham Harwood
• Benjamin Mako Hill
• Hivenetworks
• Adam Hyde
• The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest
• Interferencias
• Internet activism
• Jaromil
• Ryan Jordan
• LAFKON
• Micah Lee
• Libre Graphics Meeting
• Yuwei Lin
• LURK
• Make Art
• MaMa
• Vesna Manojlovic
• Aymeric Mansoux
• Manufactura Independente
• Pierre Marchand
• Marcell Mars
• Mattin
• Tomislav Medak
• Media Design and Communication Piet Zwart Institute Rotterdam
• Armin Medosch
• Modern Poland Foundation
• Mur.at
• Michael Murtaugh
• Mz Baltazar's Laboratory
• Oekonux Conference
• Julian Oliver
• OpenLab
• OSP
• P2P Foundation
• Piksel
• Platoniq
• Public Software Group
• Pure Data
• Relearn
• Hugo Roy
• Sanchez
• Servers
• Servus.at
• Sloboda stvaralaštvu!
• Femke Snelting
• Sourcefabric
• Richard Stallman
• Malte Steiner
• SuperCollider
• Systemli
• Systerserver
• TransHACKfeminist! camp
• Transpiksel
• Marco Valdivia
• Marloes de Valk
• Varia
• James Vasile
• Danja Vasiliev
• Verbindingen / Jonctions
• VX:mission
• Wizards of OS
• WSFII
• Wendy Van Wynsberghe
• Simon Yuill

Events

Conferences and summits

• OSCON, Portland, *1999
• FISL, Porto Alegre, *2000
• FOSDEM, Brussels, *2001
• Oekonux Conference, int., *2001
• Linux Audio Conference, int., *2002
• LibrePlanet, Cambridge/MA, *2006
• FSCONS, Gothenburg, *2007
• Open Source Bridge, Portland, 2009-2018, [1]
• FOSSASIA Summit, Asia, *2010
• IndieWeb Summit / IndieWebCamp, Portland & int., *2011
• FabFuse, Amersfoort, 2012-2015
• Koppelting, Amersfoort, *2016
• OFFDEM, Brussels, *2020, [2]

• Event listings: foss.events (Europe & online, *2019).

FLOSS arts festivals and events

• Eclectic Tech Carnival, int., *2002
• Piksel, Bergen, *2003
• Verbindingen / Jonctions, Brussels, [2000] 2004-2013
• HAIP, Ljubljana, 2004-2012
• OpenLab, London, 2005-2012
• Make Art, Poitiers, 2006-2010
• Libre Graphics Meeting, int., *2006
• Art Meets Radical Openness (formerly LiWoLi), Linz, *2008
• Flossie, London, 2012-2013
• TransPiksel, int., *2016

Publications

• Richard M. Stallman, "The GNU Manifesto", Mar 1985 ff. [3]

• Richard M. Stallman, "What Is the Free Software Foundation?", GNU’s Bulletin 1:1, Cambridge, MA: Free Software Foundation, Feb 1986, pp 8-9.

• Richard M. Stallman, "What Is Free Software?", 1996 ff. Previous versions.

• Richard M. Stallman, et al., Free Software: Essays and Articles, 1996 ff. Collection of articles.

• Bruce Perens, "Debian Social Contract, Version 1.0", Jul 1997.

• Eric S. Raymond, "Goodbye, ‘Free Software’; Hello, ‘Open Source’", Feb 1998.

• Richard M. Stallman, "Why 'Free Software' is better than 'Open Source'", 1998; rev. as "Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software", 2007 ff.

• Eric S. Raymond, "Open Source Summit", Linux Journal, Jun 1998.

• Eric S. Raymond, "Keeping an Open Mind", Cyberian Express, Mar/Apr 1999.

• Mark Stone, Chris DiBona, Sam Ockman (eds.), Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution, Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media, 1999, 280 pp.
  • Bruce Perens, "The Open Source Definition", pp 171-188. [4]

• Eric S. Raymond, "The Luxury of Ignorance: An Open-Source Horror Story", (Part Two), Feb 2004.

• Eric S. Raymond, "Terminology Wars: A Web Content Analysis", 2004.

• Eric S. Raymond, "Open Minds, Open Source", Analog, Jun-Jul 2004.

• Simon Yuill, "Your Machines: Your Culture", Variant 2:20, Summer 2004.

• Armin Medosch, "Roots Culture: Free Software Vibrations Inna Babylon", in How Open is the Future? Economic, Social & Cultural Scenarios Inspired by Free and Open Source Software, eds. Marleen Wynants and Jan Cornelis, Brussels: VUB Brussels University Press, 2005, pp 135-162; upd. in Engineering Culture: On 'The Author as (Digital) Producer' , eds. Geoff Cox and Joasia Krysa, New York: Autonomedia, 2005, pp 177-201; repr. in Sarai Reader 2005: Bare Acts, New Delhi: Sarai, 2005, pp 222-239. Draft.

• Mute 2(1): "Underneath The Knowledge Commons", London: Mute, Dec 2005.

• Simon Yuill, "All Problems of Notation Will Be Solved By the Masses", Mute 2:8, London: Mute, May 2008.

• Aymeric Mansoux, Marloes de Valk (eds.), FLOSS+Art, Poitiers: Goto10, and London: Mute, 2008, 320 pp.

• Chun Lee, Art Unlimited: An Investigation into Contemporary Digital Arts and the Free Software Movement, London: Middlesex University, 2008, 166 pp. PhD dissertation.

• Christopher M. Kelty, Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008, xvi+378 pp, PDF.
  • Two Bits: la trascendencia cultural del software libre, ed. Florencio Cabello, Barcelona: Icaria, 2019, 455 pp, PDF. (Spanish)

• Marloes de Valk, "Tools to Fight Boredom: FLOSS and GNU/Linux for Artists Working in the Field of Generative Music and Software Art", Contemporary Music Review 28(1): "Generative Music", eds. Nick Collins and Andrew R. Brown, 2009, pp 89-101, PDF. [5]

• En Defensa del Software Libre, 4 vols., 2010-2016. (Spanish)

• Ruth Catlow, Marc Garrett (eds.), Collaboration and Freedom – The World of Free and Open Source Art, 2011.

• Aymeric Mansoux, "How Deep is Your Source", in Digital Art Conservation, Preservation of Digital Art: Theory and Practice, ed. Bernhard Serexhe, Karlsruhe: ZKM, 2012.

• Paula Roush, "Towards a Free/ Libre/ Open/ Source/ University", Furtherfield, Feb 2013.

• Journal of Peer Production 3: "The Critical Power of Free Software", Jul 2013.
  • Christopher Kelty, "There Is No Free Software".

• Aymeric Mansoux, "My Lawyer is an Artist", Hz #19, ed. Sashiko Hayashi, Fylkingen, 2014.

• I Think That Conversations Are the Best, Biggest Thing That Software Has to Offer its User, Brussels: Constant, 2015, 351 pp. (English)

• Aymeric Mansoux, Sandbox Culture: A Study of the Application of Free and Open Source Software Licensing Ideas to Art and Cultural Production, London: Goldsmiths University of London, 2017, xxxviii+486 pp. PhD dissertation.

• Christina Dunbar-Hester, Hacking Diversity: The Politics of Inclusion in Open Technology Cultures, Princeton University Press, 2020, xi+271 pp. [6]

• petites singularités, "O2FFDEM. The threat to free software: An OFFDEM manifesto", Jan 2020.
  • "O2FFDEM. La menace qui pèse sur le logiciel libre. Un manifeste d’OFFDEM", Jan 2020. (French)

• Aymeric Mansoux, Roel Roscam Abbing, "Seven Theses on the Fediverse and the Becoming of FLOSS", in The Eternal Network: The Ends and Becomings of Network Culture, eds. Kristoffer Gansing and Inga Luchs, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, and Berlin: transmediale e.V., Feb 2020, pp 124-140, HTML.
  • "Sieben Thesen zum Fediverse und zur Weiterentwicklung von FLOSS", in The Eternal Network. Vom Enden und Werden der Netzkultur, eds. Kristoffer Gansing and Inga Luchs, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, and Berlin: transmediale e.V., 2020, pp 136-154. (German)
  • "Sept Thèses sur le Fédiverse et le devenir du logiciel libre", trans. Framalang, Framablog, 26 Jan 2021. (French)

• Présence Solidaire, "On Software Syndicalism", Jul 2021.

• THX - Présence Solidaire. Pænser Ensemble: le Collectif et le Soin Radical, Brussels: petites singularités, 2021, 168 pp. (French),(English),(Spanish)

• Toolkit for Homes of Commons, European Cultural Foundation, 2021.

• MARCH: "Publishing as Protocol", eds. Constant and Vessel, 2021-2023. [7]

• Johan Söderberg, Maxigas, Resistance to the Current: The Dialectics of Hacking, forew. Richard Barbrook, MIT Press, Nov 2022, 264 pp, PDF. Publisher.

• Publications on FLOSS on Monoskop/log

• more

Documentary films

• FLOSSOFÍA: el software libre en el arte, dir. Ernesto Romero, 2009, 83 min. With footage from the 2008 editions of Make Art and Piksel festivals.

• Art Meets Radical Openness, 2009, 26 min. Documentary of the 2009 festival edition. Film conceived by Annalisa Cannito, Chui Yong Jian, Santiago Bence.

Resources

• Alternative Internet, a collection of networks, tools and devices aiming at decentralisation.

• Anti-Subscription Catalogue, a catalogue of non-subscription, free, open-source, and one-time fee software.

• Open Source People and Community

• Eightycolumn (80c; archived), a network of free culture aware educators in art, music and design education.

See also

Shadow libraries, Hacker culture, Copyright activism, Commons, Data activism, Pure Data, SuperCollider, Live coding, Libre graphics