Celebrating FOSS, and twenty years of Open Source

For the last few days I (and several of the freenode volunteers) have had the absolute pleasure of spending time with a wide range of freenode users over at FOSDEM in Brussels. FOSDEM has always provided us with an excellent opportunity to catch up, not only with one another but also with sponsors, group contacts and others.

I would like to extent heartfelt thanks to the incredible organisers and volunteers, speakers and attendees who make FOSDEM (and other such events) possible, and I would also like to thank those of you who took the time to speak with us, provide feedback, thoughts and words of appreciation. It is nice to be reminded that you appreciate the freenode project, and that you feel it adds some value.

We often find that a large proportion of our time is spent dealing with spam or other problematic behaviour, and it is all too easy to forget that the incredibly small minority of users that create issues are just that, a minority, and that the vast proportion of our userbase consists of amazing human-beings who collaborate on exciting, important and curious projects. And perhaps we also sometimes forget to show our appreciation of the incredible work you all undertake within the FOSS and peer-directed project spaces.

On Saturday, I joined Laura Czajkowski, Leslie Hawthorn, Deb Nicholson, VM Brasseur and many others in song as we came together to sing Happy Birthday to Open Source to mark that it had been 20 years since the term was first coined. It felt fitting that this should take place not only during FOSDEM, but also during Free and Open Source Software Month. So once more, Happy Birthday Open Source!

To celebrate Free and Open Source Software Month, Private Internet Access is running a promotion this month, with savings of up to 62% if you take out an annual subscription here.

We'd love to hear about, and help highlight any other similar promotions run by other companies that are doing something similar to celebrate FOSS month! Please do let us know (support@freenode.net) or via IRC if you are doing something cool, and would like us to share it with our community!