Free software communities often start small
No matter how far you are on your free software journey, you can participate in the broader free software community.
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Like many free software community initiatives, Georgia Tech's first student-run free software club is a result of curiosity and a desire to share. In my sophomore year at Georgia Tech, I had a challenging course on the Assembly and C programming languages. While struggling with a GDB debugging assignment, I stumbled upon Dr. Richard M. Stallman's GNU C Language Introduction and Reference Manual. Within a week I felt like I had genuinely mastered the materials. What struck me wasn't just the depth of Dr. Stallman's knowledge — it was that the manual was entirely free to read and distribute. I had never really thought about the freedom to share knowledge itself until then, and that idea really stuck with me.
During a brief but very educational internship at a small consulting firm I grew to understand how important educating people on free software is. According to my boss at the time, "free software isn't a viable option because you can just hide malware in it." He was convinced that the firm would lose money by switching to free software if the nonfree software being used hadn't been cracked (yet). This experience showed me how many decisions that affect us all are not made by people who understand computers, but instead by people who can only see dollar signs.
While the firm I worked for may not have given free software the respect it deserves, many people at Georgia Tech are active supporters of free software, including some you might not expect. Georgia Tech itself has entire labs on campus powered by GNU software and many professors who use free software regularly. Dr. Francesco Fedele, a civil/environmental engineering professor that I worked with as his teaching and research assistant, is one such person. In spite of not specializing in coding, Dr. Fedele has a great appreciation for free software tools and a desire to contribute to the movement, including in his freedom-respecting classroom approach. He was very supportive of me and my desire to get more involved in sharing free software and its philosophy, even finding time to help me build a free as in freedom course guide from scratch on machine learning.
Dr. Fedele isn't the only professor at Georgia Tech with a passion for free software, though. Later that year, I worked as intern with Dr. Jeffrey Young, the head of the free software focused Georgia Tech program office. He is a seasoned engineer with extensive experience in free software and a strong commitment to its values. I not only got a much clearer picture of what free software development looks like while working with Dr. Young but also a supportive mentor. Dr. Young was instrumental to what would become the Georgia Tech LibreTech Collective (GTLTC), volunteering to help with basic tasks and connect me with people he knew would want to help.
In addition to Dr. Young, I had a lot of help from my friends and fellow officers in getting GTLTC started. Atticus Lopez, our treasurer and my co-runner, has been by my side longer than anyone. He is just as committed as me to seeing the GTLTC's goal through: to build a community where students could learn about, contribute to, and advocate for freedom-first technology. We really wanted to embody a bit of the hacker culture as described by Dr. Stallman from the 1970s and 1980s, so we started hosting "homebrews" (two to three hour sessions that began with a short student-led talk or demo and ended with socializing). In an effort to bring in the greater free software community, we have had a few guest speaker events, including with FSF staff members, a few Georgia Tech alumni, and even Dr. Stallman himself. We also aspire to soon organize a judged hackathon.
We started with no funding and no backing — just a handful of people passionate about computing freedom. Creating a successful community group can be difficult, but thankfully we found people who really believed in the cause. By getting them to advocate for us, we managed to establish GTLTC successfully within a short time frame. If you are looking to grow your own local free software community on your college campus, we'd love to help you make that happen. If you're a college student interested in starting a free software club at your school, you'll need about ten people to get a chapter started. You can reach us via email at gtltc@protonmail.com. We hope to hear from you soon!
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