do you take part in any local civil liberties or free software groups?

Well, I haven't joined any local group of such subjects yet. You know what? I haven't even joined a local group of any subject.

I would like to join/make a local group about free software (as you already know, which is different from open source software in philosophy) and free culture (which is different from the shared culture in philosophy). The group would actually get involved in a mix of projects, probably organized in subgroups.

So far, only one of my friends actually supports the statements made in the above paragraph, his brother went out from an open source community for a reason not yet known by myself, but yet, his brother is the one who introduced my friend to this concepts (free software, open source software, free culture, and shared culture).

I've been thinking about creating this kind of group in the faculty which I attend, the problem is that it has no courses entirely related to computing subjects, although it has some disciplines (academic meaning, please). Also, since I'm attending the course of administration (of people), I'm not sure if the course coordinator agrees with the creation of the group, specially because, despite the fact that he's graduated in computer science, he participated in some open source projects but left them. According to the course coordinator, "the open source software community doesn't have software for more specific uses" (I don't know of such specific uses, sorry).

Also, a new course will be opened next year in the faculty which I attend, it's the course of information systems, but my parents want me to finish the course which I'm attending first, which, by the time of this post, will take more four years, if all the disciplines (academic meaning too) are attended each business day of the week.

Best regards, ADFENO.
Have a nice day.

There is a Linux user group [sic] in my city but those guys were too open sourcey for me. "Binary blobs in kernel? Not a problem! Let's install you some proprietary software, who could live without it?" etcetc... I went to the meetings a few times but it really wasn't for me.

I've been thinking about starting a GNU/Linux user group. I did give a lecture at my university about the history and theory of free software. 7 people attended and some of them seemed genuinely interested and I didn't even send the invitation to a very large crowd. That was a lot of fun, might do that again.

On 11/06/13 00:54, adel afzal wrote:
> What has your experience been like?
>
> If you haven not: Have you thought about it? Do you know what kind
> of activities you would like to get involved in?

I haven't met up in-person in any groups (yet). But I participate in the
EFA (Electronic Frontiers Australia, similar to EFF) mailing lists,
which isn't a free software group, but does focus on privacy, censorship
and legal issues.

My university recently announced an "Open Source Group" which I'm
considering joining. Of course I will make my software freedom views
known to anyone who asks. :-)

Andrew.

Yes, I am part of LibrePlanet Washington:
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:LibrePlanet_Washington

We get together for monthly Software Freedom Dinners at various places, and get active with protests, until security kicks us out:
https://www.defectivebydesign.org/2013-day-against-drm

Also, last picture.

Le Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:54:10 +0200 (CEST),
name at domain a écrit :

> What has your experience been like?
>
> If you haven not: Have you thought about it? Do you know what kind
> of activities you would like to get involved in?

I have been active in a local free software group (Infothema;
infothema.fr), but I recently quitted it. I didn't agree anymore with
most of the decisions of my president (who has quite a dictatorial
behaviour…). The activities became too borderline (fablab, "open
source", etc.). And, as an example of something disturbing me, my
president suggested to make a public session to present some
distributions. He suggested Linux Mint. I suggested Trisquel. He
answered me "Why not both?" I answered "How do you present the
difference?" I didn't get an answer…
But generally speaking, we made public sessions about once a month a
organised an annula show devoted to free software (but not only),
with the first one last year. We never got much people coming. If we had
five persons for public sessions, it was REALLY good! We didn't have a
lot of people for our show either (about 200, I would say, on one day).
We also participated to other shows to promote our group. But it seems
it didn't work great.
So, quite disappointed, but still rewarding (we learn some things).
And I figured out that most free software users only want a system
running well, no way if you need to install some non-free parts.

I live in Toronto. It's a big city; I think that there should be groups already organized here. I will try and find out on the Internet, and by asking at university faculty offices here.

If anyone knows of a group in Toronto, could you let me know? I'm also open to starting something, if we don't have an active civil liberties oriented group here.

jxself: I met the man standing with you in the DRM protest photo, when I visited Boston last summer!