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 ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

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 ...

. It shares many similarities with

FOSDEM Free and Open source Software Developers' European Meeting (FOSDEM) is an annual software engineering conference. It is non-commercial and volunteer-organized with a focus on free and open-source software. Initiated in 2000, it is usually held d ...

(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, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

, 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 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 ...

, 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, Mats Östling, Lars Aronsson and Georg C. F. Greve. Through the years 2008-2011, the conference was organised once a year, always in October or November. In 2008, the FSFE 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, Dr. Ansgar Bernardi, Christina Haralanova, Amelia Andersdotter, Marcin Jakubowski, Erik Zachte, Edmund Harriss, Karin Kosina, Henri Bergius, Glyn Moody, 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

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

Winners

* 2007 : Skolelinux * 2008 : Mats Östling * 2009 : Simon Josefsson &

Daniel Stenberg Magnus Daniel Stenberg is a Swedish developer and recipient of the 2017 Polhem Prize (for a high-level technological innovation or an ingenious solution to a technical problem) for his work on the cURL utility. Stenberg was born and raised in Hu ...

* 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