September 18, 2021
The world celebrates Software Freedom Day today with the aim of increasing awareness of
Free Software and its virtues, and it is in the same spirit and excitement that we
announce today the Software Freedom Camp Diversity Edition. Diversity edition is aiming to
reach out to people subject to systemic bias and impacted by under-representation in the
technical industry in India.
The Software Freedom Camp is an online mentorship camp on free software organized by Free
Software Community of India in association with Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle-IIT
Bombay and Egalitarians. It will start in October and run till end of February.
The Software Freedom Camp will be a valuable opportunity for anyone who wishes to become a
contributor to free software projects but feels like they need structured mentorship and a
learning environment to get started. It will also be an opportunity for existing free
software contributors to get new contributors to their project and facilitate their entry
into the free software community.
Application links for learners and mentors are open now on the camp website and will close
for learners on October 15 2021.
The camp promises to be a safe space for learners to acquaint themselves with the
philosophy of free software while also getting equipped to become free software
contributors. In the first phase of the camp, learners will go through a series of
assignments, interactions, movie screenings, and other activities that introduces them to
the social benefits of free software and exposes them to the free software culture. They
will get help in using free software on their own devices. At the end of this phase, they
will get a chance to explore various free software projects and working with mentors they
will be asked to create working proposals for contributing to these projects. The camp
will match each learner to a mentor based on their proposal. In the second phase, each
learner starts their free software contribution as per their accepted proposal, closely
working with their mentor. There will be periodic review meetings to address the needs of
the learners and help them stay on track.
Any free software contributor who can meet mentor expectations listed on the camp site can
apply to become a mentor. They can also add their ideas to the list of ideas from which
the learners can find starting points for writing their proposals. The mentors will work
closely with the camp organizers in evaluation and selection of proposals, and with
learners to facilitate the success of the selected proposals.
The camp encourages all kinds of contributions and contribution pathways - programming,
system administration, packaging, UI/UX, forensics, localization, artworks, documentation,
publicity, event organizing, etc. - as long as there is alignment with the free software
philosophy. The camp is conducted online using free software communication tools like
BigBlueButton, Matrix, etc. There is no fee for participation.
For more details and to apply, visit the camp website at https://camp.fsci.in/
Camp Code of Conduct is https://camp.fsci.in/code-of-conduct
Dear All,
We are approaching the end of Mentorship period "officially" in first
edition of Free Software Camp. Congratulations to all those who are
still on track. And for those who have left midway, opportunities for
contributions to Free Software and the community always awaits you.
Deviating a little from the official schedule, presentation will be held
on March 29th, Monday, at 6 PM and an official closing ceremony will be
followed.
All are welcome to participate, make your comments and suggestions. This
is a place for open discussions and mutual benefit of improvement is
what we aim for.
Meeting will be at Main Hall: https://meet.gnome.org/b/fre-zfn-yff-jl9
Thanks to all who contributed to this edition of Free software camp,
participating, mentoring, volunteering, organising and cheering us along.
See you all there!
Best Regards,
Anupa Ann Joseph
for Free Software Camp Organizing Team
Dear All,
As requested by some of the Learners, that they need more time to draft the Proposals, we have decided to extend the last date for Proposal submission to 14th December. Please note that the Mentorship shall start only on 19th December due to this delay.
Regards,
Free Software Camp Team
Dear learners,
We have a whole week of ice breaking sessions intended to build bonding
between members of the camp. As you would have noticed our methods are
learner-centered and learner-directed. We use discussions and debates to
make you think about various topics. We believe that self-directed
learning can be accelerated when we facilitate building the motivation
to learn in a learner.
On our website we wrote "Free Software Camp is a mentorship programme
for bringing more people to Free Software with strong focus on
philosophy." It is the philosophy of Free Software that attracts people
from varied fields to it. You would have already noticed that we have
people from fields like Mathematics, Health, Social Science, Library
Science, Education, Physics, different branches of Engineering and so on
in the camp and not just Software Engineers. This diversity of interests
and backgrounds is not artificially created. Ideas like freedom resonate
with everyone and that is what brings them to Free Software. Contrast
this with programmes which only focus on doing specific things or
acquiring specific skills, where you might find people who are all
working in the same job or same industry. We hope by the end of the
camp, learners will imbibe the philosophy of Free Software and
appreciate the multitude of reasons behind contributing to Free Software.
Building a strong community of people who understand, appreciate, and
advocate Free Software even after the camp is what we hope to achieve
through the camp. As clarified in the opening session,
Expect from the camp:
Mentorship
Guidance
Access to discussion groups
Opportunity to work on real world projects
Do not expect:
Prize money/stipend
Certificate
T-shirt
Stickers
Job placement
If this is not what you expected from the camp and you find the
philosophy difficult to relate with, you might be feeling a sense of
disappointment or discomfort. But all growth comes with some pain. Try
to attend all sessions sincerely and be an active participant of the
camp. By doing so, you just might find the reason why we are all so
excited about Free Software. And we can't wait to share that excitement
with you.
Having said that, do not hesitate to contact us if something is
bothering you. We know that the success of the camp is dependent on
actively engaging with all the participants, addressing all their
concerns and taking their suggestions into consideration.
* * *
Freedom can be understood as the presence of certain freedoms. But
freedom can also be understood from the other side, by looking at
absence of certain freedoms. In the next camp activity (which is 5-days
long), we will be looking at freedom from the latter side, i.e. the lack
of it. Learners will be exploring, analyzing, critiquing, and responding
to different controls/restrictions in the current society to develop a
wider perspective on freedom.
More details will be shared in the session today.
The organizing team,
Free Software Camp
Dear learners,
We are sending emails to learners for a final confirmation meeting in batches. Some of you will be getting mails only tomorrow. If you got a mail already be ready to join the meeting at the time slot assigned to you.
Thanks
Praveen
Hi Learners,
We have created a short video introducing Matrix, mainly to help you create a
matrix account and join the Free Software Camp Discussions happening in Matrix
- https://videos.fsci.in/videos/watch/5fbd125f-d309-4eda-a4af-4009ced56f71 .
Check it out, create a matrix account and join the discussion at in Free Software
Camp Commons Room and keep yourself updated.
Thanks,
Akhil Varkey
We have created separate mailing lists for learners and mentors. Hope you all received the welcome mails to the respective mailing lists.
All future private communications, including the access details for sessions will be done through these mailing lists.
You can also use these lists to communicate among your fellow learners or mentors respectively.
Also if you haven't joined the common matrix room for camp discussions [0], please consider joining the same.
P.S. Many of our mails did not reach the intended recipients due to spam filters. If you know someone who applied for the camp, but did not receive any mails, ask them to contact us [1].
[0] https://matrix.to/#/#fscamp:poddery.com
[1] https://camp.fsf.org.in/#contact
September 19, 2020 (re-posting here)
The world celebrates Software Freedom Day today with the aim of increasing awareness of Free Software and its virtues, and it is in the same spirit and excitement that we announce today the Free Software Camp.
The Free Software Camp is an online mentorship camp on free software organized by Free Software Foundation of India and Free Software Community of India. It will start in October and run till end of February.
The Free Software Camp will be a valuable opportunity for anyone who wishes to become a contributor to free software projects but feels like they need structured mentorship and a learning environment to get started. It will also be an opportunity for existing free software contributors to get new contributors to their project and facilitate their entry into the free software community.
Application links for learners and mentors are open now on the camp website and will be so till October 15.
The camp promises to be a safe space for learners to acquaint themselves with the philosophy of free software while also getting equipped to become free software contributors. In the first phase of the camp, learners will go through a series of assignments, interactions, movie screenings, and other activities that introduces them to the social benefits of free software and exposes them to the free software culture. They will get help in using free software on their own devices. At the end of this phase, they will get a chance to explore various free software projects and working with mentors they will be asked to create working proposals for contributing to these projects. The camp will match each learner to a mentor based on their proposal. In the second phase, each learner starts their free software contribution as per their accepted proposal, closely working with their mentor. There will be periodic review meetings to address the needs of the learners and help them stay on track.
Any free software contributor who can meet mentor expectations listed on the camp site can apply to become a mentor. They can also add their ideas to the list of ideas from which the learners can find starting points for writing their proposals. The mentors will work closely with the camp organizers in evaluation and selection of proposals, and with learners to facilitate the success of the selected proposals.
The camp encourages all kinds of contributions and contribution pathways - programming, system administration, packaging, UI/UX, forensics, localization, artworks, documentation, publicity, event organizing, etc. - as long as there is alignment with the free software philosophy. The camp is conducted online using free software communication tools like Big Blue Button, Matrix, etc. There is no fee for participation.
For more details and applying visit https://camp.fsf.org.in