[{"content":"Libre Las Vegas: GNU/Linux Free Software Users Group\nWhether you\u0026rsquo;re running GNU/Linux already as your desktop operating system or are interested in doing so, this group is for you. Our goal is to create an environment that is welcoming, fun, and educational.\n","date":"12 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/groups/nevada/las-vegas/libre-las-vegas/","section":"Groups","summary":"","title":"Libre Las Vegas","type":"groups"},{"content":"Established July 2021, LibrePlanet Colorado is a group of activists and other volunteers who advocate for the ideals of Free/Libre Software as an ethical social movement, and digital rights as a necessary means for a Free Society. We operate in accordance with the LibrePlanet Mission Statement and Code of Conduct.\nLibera Chat channel: #libreplanet-colorado\n","date":"8 January 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/groups/colorado/denver/libredenver/","section":"Groups","summary":"","title":"LibrePlanet Colorado","type":"groups"},{"content":"title: The Nix Ecosystem (NixOS Part 1) Abstract # Introduction # Nix, to put it succinctly, is an ecosystem of tools for making software deployments more reproducible. It aims to eliminate the complaint of \u0026ldquo;it works on my machine.\u0026rdquo;\nIn order to achieve this, an incredibly powerful set of tools has been developed. This presentation will cover a few of the most popular Nix projects, namely:\nNixlang # The purely functional domain-specific-language that all other Nix tools are configured in Nix-Shell # An ephemeral shell environment which allows developers to specify dependencies, set environment variables, run setup scripts etc for a reproducible development environment Solves many of the same use cases as Docker for developers, but is more lightweight Also allows regular users to test out software before installing it Disko # A tool which allows disk partitions and filesystem to be described in Nixlang Then it can automatically format and mount drives with a single command Home-Manager # A tool which uses Nixlang to configure a user\u0026rsquo;s home directory, and can work alongside or replace standard dotfiles Nixpkgs # One of the largest, most up-to-date software repositories in the world Larger than the AUR and much better maintained Real-World Example # This presentation will also show an example of how the author used Nixpkgs to replace the use of traditional package managers in an install script in a real-world software project. This expanded the amount of distros supported while simultaneously reducing maintainer overhead.\nPresenter # Zachary Liebl hartfordlug (at) zachliebl.com\nDate # Friday November 22nd 2024 at 6:30PM EST\nPart 2 # Part 2 (scheduled for December) will cover NixOS and related topics\n","date":"22 November 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/groups/massachusetts/boston/libreboston/","section":"Groups","summary":"","title":"LibreBoston","type":"groups"},{"content":"","date":"3 June 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/","section":"Authors","summary":"","title":"Authors","type":"authors"},{"content":"The following is an update for the past three months. For quicker updates, follow the wiki or our Mastodon!\nThese past couple months have mostly seen us settle into a basic rhythm at B40. In response to some of our setbacks in prior months, we spent these months taking a much more cautious approach to scaling and giving more attention to seeding and supporting existing chapters.\nAs a result we\u0026rsquo;ve seen extremely strong and sustainable growth for our efforts on the local level, with our existing chapters showing promising indicators of health and self-sufficiency. These next months will most likely be committed to building up a strong national/virtual culture, as the focus on chapters has left that with a lot of work left to do.\nLocal Chapter Updates # As per recommendations from our last quarterly report, we\u0026rsquo;ve taken a much more conservative approach to seeding chapters. As a result, we have seen our presence be a lot less spread thin and our existing chapters showing a lot stronger indications of long-term health and self-sufficiency.\nAmong our official chapters:\nThe Boston chapter has continued to meet regularly, with a strong mix of presentations and workshops given by a variety of members. B40 Boston is beginning to look into organizing more The Maryland chapter has shown extremely promising progress. Meetings have been held regularly with strong attendance levels, various members have given presentations on a variety of topics, and they have also branched into workshops (such as an OpenStreetMap Contribution Drive and a Self-Hosting Workshop). Where we\u0026rsquo;re currently seeding chapters:\nThe Bay Area group had a solid showing to their LibreLocal event, which also doubled as their first in-person meeting. Signs of health for future meetings look strong. The West Massachussetts group did not get sufficient attendance for their first planned in-person meeting but were able to quickly reschedule. How this goes is yet to be seen. The WM organizer has run into some unexpected circumstances and won\u0026rsquo;t be in the area for the short term. What happens from hre has yet to be seen. The Central Illinois group has a new organizer who brought in a new wave of members, and seems to have strong momentum behind it. No meetings have been planned yet, but this group is currently in formation. The New York group has still struggled with attendance, with great difficulty in both planning meetings and demonstrating turnout. Right now, things might need to go back to the drawing board for this group. LibreLocal Month # In addition, because May was LibreLocal Month, various B40 groups made it a priority to give a strong showing across America! We organized a variety of events and meetups, all for the purpose of promoting free-software!\nThe Boston chapter organized an EFF Rayhunter workshop to help promote awareness of countersurveillance techniques. The Maryland chapter organized a field trip to the System Source Museum, a museum dedicated to the history of computing. There, members learned about various topics in computing history and the origins of early computing. B40 members in NYC and the Bay Area also organized meetups where presentations and discussions surrounding a variety of free-software topics were given. Fostering a National Culture # While we\u0026rsquo;ve seen very strong progress in terms of our local chapter health, there\u0026rsquo;s still a lot of work to do to provide connections for those without a chapter and foster a more cohesive national culture. This is especially important as both of our official chapters are tied to universities and are currently out for summer break.\nWe spent the past couple months experimenting with a couple concepts:\nIn May, we hosted a \u0026ldquo;virtual mixer event\u0026rdquo; where we invited a guest speaker and had him talk a bit about his work mapping the decentralized web. This event turned out well, with solid attendance, and brought together some good discussions and connections for everyone involved. We are looking at organizing more of these One of the ideas discussed was possibly having FOSS game nights as a general social event. Idea was that these require not much work for organization, are more casual, and would make building a national culture easier. The struggle with organizing both of these has been a lack of responsiveness in terms of scheduling, which probably can be attributed to the lack of an existing national culture (and by extent incentive to follow up on scheduling). It\u0026rsquo;s still unclear on how to address this.\nIn the past, having a presence at FOSS conferences has been a reliable way to boost our national energy, we\u0026rsquo;ll likely look into doing that again this year.\nMiscellaneous # Much work still needs to be done on the wiki, some of the following topics for articles are planned:\nFinding Guest Speakers Measuring Chapter Health Networking and Recruiting New Members Planning Chapter Meetings It might be necessary to find helpers for the wiki but this will also require building a stronger national culture out of which people can be recruited.\n","date":"3 June 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/recap/spring-2026/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"Beyond40 Quarterly Recap: Spring 2026","type":"blog"},{"content":"","date":"3 June 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/formerlytomato/","section":"Authors","summary":"","title":"Formerlytomato","type":"authors"},{"content":"As part of an effort to lighten administrative load, we\u0026rsquo;ll be switching over from a monthly update system to a seasonal one. For quicker updates, follow the wiki or our Mastodon!\nThese past couple months have seen us grappling with the rapid growth we experienced in months prior and trying to figure out how to best handle the growing complexity of the group.\nAs a result, we\u0026rsquo;ve found that as we settle into a routine of having been \u0026ldquo;launched\u0026rdquo;, it probably makes more sense to do these blogposts on a seasonal basis so more energy can be focused on the actual work itself.\nDuring this period, we\u0026rsquo;ve had to deal with a lot of difficult administrative questions, all while working to maintain the health of the chapters themselves. If there was any lesson we took away from the past months, it\u0026rsquo;s that we probably need to be more cautious with the pace at which we scale.\nGetting Ourselves Together # Before this, our main form of communication to our members was the Signal chat (which moved way too fast) and the website (which was updated way too slow). We started experimenting with more medium-speed forms of communication and eventually decided to settle on having a community wiki.\nThe wiki was made so that members can post documentation, ideas, chapter updates, and discussion posts. In addition we have a Mastodon set up to make it easier to blast announcements and calls for action.\nOf course, getting the wiki seeded and all that documentation filled out takes a lot of work, work which we\u0026rsquo;re still sifting through. But here\u0026rsquo;s some of the stuff already on the wiki:\nOfficial guides for starting a chapter and introducing new people to B40. Megathreads where anyone can submit ideas for discussion topics, campaigns, and projects. Directories of meeting places, previously held events, and other useful links. Properly documenting and codifying our processes will help to disperse knowledge which in turn will help to creating less chokepoints for following along and getting stuff done. Hopefully this will spread the load and make running the group more sustainable in the long-run.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s also been some requests for clarification (or at least some kind of indication of a plan) regarding governance. We have some early notes posted to the wiki, but building this out will be a long-term project.\nRunning Campaigns # In the beginning of February, the social media platform Discord announced rollouts for age-verification. In response, B40 started the first \u0026ldquo;micro-campaign\u0026rdquo;, titled Ditch Discord!\nWe put together some fliers, compiled information about alternatives on the wiki, and set up a mini testing lab to filter out reccommendable alternatives. Overall, it worked rather well.\nIn the process of doing all this, we\u0026rsquo;ve created a template others can follow for creating their own \u0026ldquo;micro-campaign\u0026rdquo; for an issue they want to target \u0026ndash; we try to set these up to be modular and light in their structure so they don\u0026rsquo;t take much work or overhead to run.\nTraditional campaigns tend to be all-encompassing, protracted efforts, with microcampaigns, we can have smaller groups run shorter campaigns on more timely topics.\nChapter Updates # Some chapters have shown activity while others haven\u0026rsquo;t. We don\u0026rsquo;t want to spread ourselves too thin, so we\u0026rsquo;ll probably focus efforts on the chapters which show promise. We\u0026rsquo;ll also only list chapters on the main page which have proven they can regularly meet, with other chapters listed on the wiki.\nAmong our established chapters:\nThe Boston chapter has continued to meet on a weekly basis and has found a specialty in discussing anti-surveillance technologies. Plans are in the works to run self-hosting workshops for Matrix/Gitlab. The Maryland chapter has partnered with the local LUG and has found a new influx of members as a result. Members have shown an interest in a presentation series but also possibly some ongoing projects. Among our nascent chapters:\nOur organizer for the Illinois chapter decided to step back, so we\u0026rsquo;ll be putting a pin in that chapter for the time being. Some members have expressed interest in reviving it but we\u0026rsquo;ll need more interest before we can proceed. Activity in Florida and New York has slowed down. Florida as an area has proven incredibly difficult to recruit from, so we\u0026rsquo;ll be pausing those efforts. NYC has members, but it has yet to build a consistent core \u0026ndash; we\u0026rsquo;ll be waiting to see where this goes. Among the areas where members showed interest in starting chapters:\nWe\u0026rsquo;re continuing to recruit members for West Massachusetts, this still looks promising and will probably soon become a target for building. We haven\u0026rsquo;t heard much from the organizers in either California or D.C., so we\u0026rsquo;ll be putting efforts here on pause. In addition:\nThere\u0026rsquo;s still interest in running some virtual events: @LM8 is looking at getting a \u0026ldquo;coding club\u0026rdquo; set up, while @backdrifting is looking at trying to set up a \u0026ldquo;reading circle\u0026rdquo; of sorts. If you have interest in either of these, reach out to either of them for more details. ","date":"14 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/recap/winter-2026/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"Beyond40 Quarterly Recap: Winter 2026","type":"blog"},{"content":"This month had us working to build up and support our initial chapters in their earliest stages. We also began work on seeding and building up new chapters. Where chapter organizers have run into roadblocks, we have started pairing them with mentors to assist. This approach has shown very promising results so far.\nMany of our chapters that our formed so far have started by just meeting and talking about various topics in the FOSS space, but we\u0026rsquo;re slowly dipping our toes into the realm of doing things.\nChapter Updates # The Boston chapter has still been meeting regularly, although it has run into some struggles with engagement and the planning out of meetings. We have paired up the Boston organizer with a local mentor who will be helping him plan out meeting ideas ahead of time and stay on top of things. As the chapter mostly consists of university students, they have elected to take a hiatus over winter break and reconvene in January. Various topics and events are in the works for January. The DMV chapter has been regularly meeting and hosted meetings on various topics including Tor and self-hosting. There are plans in the works to begin using local university infrastructure towards hosting FOSS services like privacy frontends. Leads have been found for separate Maryland and DC chapters, so this chapter will likely split. The Central Illinois chapter is still in the process of formation, but the chapter lead has developed a website and various other resources to help with bringing on less technically-inclined people to Beyond40. THe New York group has found a new chapter lead, and recruited a lot more members. A chapter initiation meeting has been scheduled for December. Organizers in West Massachusetts have found members to seed a chapter with, but the chapter initiation meeting has yet to be scheduled. Members in the Bay Areaa have shown interest in forming a chapter and are now reaching out to local FOSS groups to begin recruiting members. Topics Discussed at Our Meeting # Designing Flyers # We talked more concretely about expectations for flyers, and decided it\u0026rsquo;s best to design flyers in a modular fashion: with reusable assets and formats tailored to specific audiences and usecases.\nBoth @beardystarstuff and @zmef have created flyer designs which we should probably look to storing in a community document repository of sorts.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ve decided on the following designs to start out:\nTwo trifolds, two 4x4 cards, and two 8.5x11 flyers: one design of each targeted to non-technical activists and one design targeted to those already familiar with FOSS Document Repository # We have a lot of various shared resources from various local chapters and users that are worth pooling: we have decided it\u0026rsquo;s worth creating a shared folder to place stuff like flyers, masterdocs, notes, and meeting slides into.\nThis will allow for users to be able to reuse information/work and also allow for the archiving of stuff made for the group that may not necessarily get linked on the website itself.\nQuestions are about where to host it: some suggestions were CryptDrive, Proton Drive, among others.\nCrowdsourcing Meeting Ideas # In that vein, a lot of our leads sometimes struggle with coming up with meeting topics or ideas. This is where I think it would be valuable to have a shared doc in which peoplecan post their suggestions for meeting topics and chapter projects.\nThis will make it easier for chapters to plan and share their experiences/ideas of what does and doesn\u0026rsquo;t work.\nVirtual Book Club # Our organizer for the virtual book club had to drop off for the time being, so the book club is currently on hiatus. But, there\u0026rsquo;s still demand from a lot of users for venues and outlets to have discussions virtually \u0026ndash; especially since we have a lot of members who live in areas outside of the reach of a local chapter.\nOne proposal by our members is a kind of virtual \u0026ldquo;open mic\u0026rdquo; \u0026ndash; meetings where members informally get together and talk about whatever. Could be presentations, asking for chapter advice, or just generally talking about FOSS.\nWe probably do regardless need to look into finding someone to take over and help plan these.\nMentor System # Some of our chapters are being run or founded by people with less experience, and this can sometimes cause issues with either planning meetings or dealing with setbacks. We\u0026rsquo;ve made an active effort this month to pair chapter leads in need of help with \u0026ldquo;mentors\u0026rdquo; \u0026ndash; active users with a long history of community organizing who don\u0026rsquo;t have a local chapter of their own to tend to.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ve found this kills two birds with one stone \u0026ndash; it helps get these stranded users more engaged while also providing chapter leads with assistance and people they can turn to to ask for advice.\nThe success of this effort signals to us that it\u0026rsquo;s worth finding other ways to engage our members virtually and ensure knowledge is being shared between chapters.\n","date":"9 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/recap/november-2025/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"Beyond40 Monthly Report: November 2025","type":"blog"},{"content":"This month continued our work in getting chapters off the ground, especially following the huge surge of interest we got in the wake of our presentation at FSF40.\nChapter Updates # Here\u0026rsquo;s where our chapters are at right now:\nThe Central Illinois chapter is showing a lot of promising growth. 10-15 people have expressed interest in starting a chapter and our organizer has made connections with a lot of local organizations in his community including the Illinois Pirate Party. A sufficient number of founding members in South Florida has been reached and they had their icebreaker meeting this month. They are now moving to planning regular, in-person meetings. The Boston chapter has shown an incredible amount of activity, meeting on a weekly basis hosting workshops on topics such as Raspberry Pis and Nextcloud. The original organizer is on a sabbatical of sorts, so responsibility for the chapter has transferred to a different member. The transition in leadership has gone very smoothly, with no notable hiccups in the chapter\u0026rsquo;s activities. The DMV chapter is meeting on a regular schedule now, and a core group of members has been identified. This month, they had a discussion on RSS and the impact of software freedom on how we consume news. Geographic distance still remains an issue, so talks are in place to split the chapter into DC and Maryland. The New York chapter still has yet to get off the ground, our organizer said his schedule should free up in December. The number of interested members shows a lot of promise for this chapter though. Missouri will probably be de-listed as a chapter, due to the lack of promising leads in finding membrs or expectation of such. This is to be expected as it\u0026rsquo;s a rural area, and recent events related to the government shutdown has preoccupied the attention of the community. The organizer there, however, has continued to work with his local library to upcycle computers and is helping out Beyond40 in other ways. Topics Discussed At Our Meeting # Designing Flyers # A lot of our organizers have taken to either tabling or promoting Beyond40 at various events and conferences they attend. As a result, there\u0026rsquo;s been a lot of demand for some kind of flyers or cards that could be handed out. We\u0026rsquo;ve tasked someone with designing them, and hopefully we\u0026rsquo;ll have them ready and released on the website in the coming weeks.\nIdeally, we\u0026rsquo;d want these flyers to contain a lot of the most essential links (interest form, website, calendar, etc.) so maybe a LinkTree (or whatever the FOSS alternative is) is in the works? It could give us a single link to put in a QR code with all the essential info.\nMastodon Account # Some members at the meeting suggested a Mastodon account which would post status updates from all the various chapters. This is a large commitment so if we were to go down this path, we might want to find someone whose willing to commit to gathering information from all the different organizers and regularly post about them.\nOther systems to aggregate updates from different organizers and chapters were suggested, but this requires its own overhead. Another suggestion brought up (which seems to be good) is for now to tag any posts about events or updates with a #beyond40 hashtag. This would allow people to follow the tag without us having to commit to maintaining a full social media account.\nOther Issues # With regards to some of the more minor questions left open during last month\u0026rsquo;s recap:\nThere is now an interest form for prospective members and members to fill out. This will give us an idea of your skills, interest, and other information that\u0026rsquo;ll make it easier for us to get you connected or find useful work to help out with. The more people we get filling this out, the better. We\u0026rsquo;re still using Gath.io for our calendar, but we\u0026rsquo;re now archiving previous events on Mobilizon. We ran a couple experiments with Zulip, but for now the plan is to continue using Signal for our chats. The Bigger Picture # How to Launch A Chapter # The real big test for this month was having to quickly figure and lay out a process for going from that initial loose collection of 3-4 \u0026ldquo;interested members\u0026rdquo; to a functioning chapter. That process of breaking the ice and actually getting people to create and commit to a regular schedule isn\u0026rsquo;t easy. What I\u0026rsquo;ve seen is a lot of organizers do not know where to start when doing this, so they do need some sort of baseline to work off of.\nOver the course of my time experimenting with Florida, the DMV, and New York, here\u0026rsquo;s the method I found works:\nWhenever a member recruits someone interested, they should encourage the recruit to fill out the interest form and join the main groupchat. This gets the recruits directly in the loop and available for future sorting. Organizers should keep a track of who is from where as members accumulate. Once there\u0026rsquo;s a decent amount of people (about 3 or more) in our network from the same area, national organizers should create a separate \u0026ldquo;formation groupchat\u0026rdquo; and invite prospective chapter members. As the formation groupchat gets spun up, national organizers should identify who in the area is a good candidate to be tasked with running the chapter. Once a candidate is decided on, they should be reached out to in order to see if they\u0026rsquo;re willing to commit. Once a chapter leader and a core set of \u0026ldquo;founding members\u0026rdquo; are found, national organizers should survey those in the formation group to begin scheduling an chapter initiation meeting. This chapter initiation meeting will be virtual and planned by national organizers. This chapter initiation meeting should start by asking everyone to introduce themselves to each other, and finding subjects to break the ice with. Afterwards, national organizers will briefly introduce Beyond40, our goals, and what chapters do. Then, turn the conversation back to asking everyone what topics they might like to discuss in future meetings, what projects they\u0026rsquo;d like to work on, etc. Note down these ideas, pass them along, and make sure they exit the meeting with a plan of what comes next. The goal of the meeting is to pass a sense of responsibility onto the members. Afterwards, the designated chapter lead will plan and schedule the first in-person meeting. Potentially have the first meeting be casual like a bar social, before dipping their toes further. National organizers should work with the chapter lead to ease them into running the chapter and overcoming hurdles. As this goes on, national organizers will probably want to keep an eye and get a sense for what kind of \u0026ldquo;crowd\u0026rdquo; makes up the membership for each chapter, as that will guide what chapters grow into. A chapter could be more university-focused, more activist-leaning, more tech-heavy, older folks, etc, it\u0026rsquo;s all situational. Having a system to keep an eye and classify this might be helpful.\n","date":"3 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/recap/october-2025/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"Beyond40 Monthly Report: October 2025","type":"blog"},{"content":"","date":"12 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/beardystarstuff/","section":"Authors","summary":"","title":"Beardystarstuff","type":"authors"},{"content":"I was recently asked to write a post for the Beyond40 blog to offer an update on our local organizing efforts in Missouri. I needed to make a few edits after it was published and rather than just send an updated file, I wanted to make a pull request directly. I\u0026rsquo;d never used GIT or Codeberg but was happy to give it a try. I was having a variety of issues ranging from my creating keys that would not validate to then just getting a bit lost. So, over to Signal I went to request an assist and they suggested we do a call/screenshare. We did and now I get it. At their suggestion I\u0026rsquo;ve written up this brief tutorial for any other GIT/Codeberg newbies that might have need to post a story to the Beyond40 blog or their own Codeberg hosted site/blog\u0026hellip;\nStarting from the beginning, in very basic steps. Say I\u0026rsquo;ve written a blog post that I want to publish to the Beyond40 site. Before we proceed to the site, ensure that your post is formatted in Markdown and you\u0026rsquo;ll want to include YAML data at the top in this format:\nLogin to my Codeberg account. Hop over to the Beyond40 Codeberg source page. Top right corner, click Fork. Note: This forking step only needs to happen once. Once done the Fork you have created will remain in your Repositories. Once forked I can now return to my profile and see the Beyond40 Repository listed in my Repositories. I click that and am taken to into my local profile repository. Relevant folders are here: Data/Authors will have an entry in the JSON format. Assets for the author entry include an Avatar. Blog posts are in the Content\u0026gt;Blog\u0026gt;recap folder With my local Markdown file ready to publish, I navigate to Content\u0026gt;Blog\u0026gt;recap where I\u0026rsquo;ll see an option to create or upload a new file. As I\u0026rsquo;ve written locally and have a saved file I\u0026rsquo;ll upload. In the upload dialog I\u0026rsquo;ll have the option to Commit directy to the main branch which is selected by deafult. Proceed. Once my file is uploaded I can open the post, click the pencil icon to edit. You\u0026rsquo;ll want to do your editing in the \u0026ldquo;raw\u0026rdquo; code view of the editor. Assuming there are some edits (there always are!) when committing changes remember to add a title and description of the changes. Again, commit to main branch is selected by default. I can go ahead and commit with my edits. Now, remember, all of this process has been happening in my repository. So, I\u0026rsquo;ve got a new story ready to go in my repository, the next step is to scroll to the top of the page where I\u0026rsquo;ll see the link on the top left: forked from Beyond40/pages-hugo-source. Clicking that link takes me back to the Beyond40 Repository where I can make a Pull Request. Click the Pull Request button then select the option in the button dropdown to pull from your repository. This will merge my story into the main repository. That\u0026rsquo;s it. If you\u0026rsquo;re posting a new story or editing a story for Beyond40 make sure to message one of the admins to let them know you\u0026rsquo;ve made changes. All of these steps also apply to editing a story that has already been published to the website. The only difference being that, in step 4 above you uploaded a new file, when editing you\u0026rsquo;ll just be clicking the link to you\u0026rsquo;re already published article. This will initially open it in view mode. To edit you\u0026rsquo;ll click the little pencil icon on the right side which will open it to editing mode. Then edit, scroll to bottom of the page and title your edit and add a description if necessary. Then commit and repeat steps 7-8 above.\nAlso, it\u0026rsquo;s worth noting that anytime you come back to your repository you may notice that the main fork has since been changed and there will be an option to sync your local fork to the main. You\u0026rsquo;ll want to do that so that you\u0026rsquo;re version is up-to-date.\n","date":"12 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/codeberg-tutorial/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"Beyond40 Codeberg Workflow Tutorial","type":"blog"},{"content":"When starting this initiative, September was the month we set to launch. It goes without saying, then, that this past month has been very eventful for the group.\nOver the course of only one month, here\u0026rsquo;s already what we have to show:\nOur Boston chapter has hosted multiple guest speakers for their events, including those involved with Internet in a Box and the Internet Archive. Zach talks about this in more detail in a separate blogpost. The DMV chapter came together this month to organize a letter-writing campaign in response to a recent right-to-repair bill that has gone through the Maryland state legislature. In St. Louis, we held an Upgrade From Windows assisted Linux install session at the Ozark Regional Library! Denny talks more about his experience in this post here. As for other areas right now:\nThe New York chapter has identified both an organizer and enough members willing to seed a chapter there. A formation groupchat has been started, and the national team will work with the local members in coming weeks to get meetings started there. The organizers in South Florida and Central Illinois are starting to uncover more leads for finding members, but a core group has yet to be locked in. I\u0026rsquo;m thinking it\u0026rsquo;ll probably be worthwhile to find someone who can work on a more individual level to assist the organizers in recruitment. DMV is proving to be a difficult region to bridge distance-wise, and we\u0026rsquo;re starting to have enough members spread across that splitting the chapter into separate Maryland and D.C. groups might be in the works. Newly joined members have expressed interest in getting chapters started in Northern California and Western Massachusetts. We will be following up with them to see where these go. The other big news is that we were invited to present our initiative at the FSF40 celebration. The reception was a strong success, and led to a significant surge in both interest and registrations. The talk has been translated into a blogpost and can be found here.\nThis next month is going to be a real test of how effectively our group can scale. The pace at which things are moving is getting to a point where I alone cannot coordinate everything. I\u0026rsquo;m going to have to be more proactive with delegating national tasks, and also finding quicker ways to get people in the loop.\nSome of the more specific problems to address:\nHow do we train organizers? The bulk of the workload of running these chapters is going to fall on whoever volunteers to do the organizing work for a given area. We cannot always guarantee these people are familiar with what to do to get stuff off the ground. How do we effectively support them and provide them with basic guidance in terms of being able to deal with the hurdles that come with organizing a local group? How do we get people on the same page? There\u0026rsquo;s a lot of nuances and specifics to our approach and what we do which we have yet to be able to explain concisely. The pace at which things progress can prove disorienting for new members, and the specifics of our approach are not clearly documented anywhere. How do we effectively follow chapter progress? Obviously, nobody can be everywhere, but at the same time it\u0026rsquo;s important to keep tabs on how things are going with each local group. The more organizers and chapters there are, the harder this will get to do manually. How do we effectively track our members? If we have members who have prior experience in organizing, who have specific interests, who have a certain level of energy and free time, how do we identify them and funnel them into the places they need to be? How do we avoid losing them in the sea of members? Some potential solutions I\u0026rsquo;m considering:\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to take the slide deck that we compiled for the FSF40 conference and translate it into another blogpost which lays out our roadmap in explicit detail. I\u0026rsquo;m going to create a member survey asking stuff like experience, availability, location, etc, all with the intention of being more easily able to keep track of our social graph and connect people. Creating a system to pair the less-experienced chapter founders with \u0026ldquo;mentors\u0026rdquo; who have organizing experience I suspect will help in terms of making the process of starting a chapter less intimidating for them. Getting those experienced members on the right page with our plan will be critical. I\u0026rsquo;m thinking it might be worthwhile to host \u0026ldquo;first meetings\u0026rdquo; virtually in cooperation with whoever volunteers to be the lead. These meetings could serve to initially break the ice and get people to know each other, and also act as a testing grounds to get organizers\u0026rsquo; feet wet with basic stuff such as wrangling people and scheduling before getting into more complicated planning. There\u0026rsquo;s also some concerns about how our technology stack will scale:\nOur selection of Signal has a chat platform has raised questions for a while, due to the fact that it\u0026rsquo;s typically not used for large-scale organizations like these. I initially picked Signal because of its wide adoption and reliability for basic functionality relative to other popular FOSS groupchat offerings. Signal seems to work well for the local chapters and DMs, but the national group has a tendency to move at a pace nobody else can keep up with. Members have suggested something like Zulip, which is both open-source and seems to be more suited to collaborative usecases. My main hesitation right now is that I want to make sure we use a platform people can actually be trusted to check and that won\u0026rsquo;t run into various issues or hiccups down the line. Therefore I do want to test this over the course of a month or two to see how it is before making a decision on migration. If we do choose to switch over, we\u0026rsquo;ll probably retain Signal for smaller chats (such as for organizers and local chapters). There\u0026rsquo;s also some questions surrounding our choice of Gath.io as a group calendar platform. The rationale for picking Gath.io is thatit\u0026rsquo;s very simple and does not require accounts or registration of any kind for interaction. This means that I can easily request anyone running an event to quickly create one and send the link to me. The problem is the default Gath.io instance is set to auto-delete events after a week (which stops us from showing a backlog of what we\u0026rsquo;ve done) and event groups cannot be followed on the Fediverse. Mobilizon is a suggested alternative, but Mobilizon does require registration to create events which does have me hesitant. I do at least want to try out Mobilizon and see how it goes. ","date":"8 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/recap/september-2025/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"Beyond40 Monthly Recap: September 2025","type":"blog"},{"content":"Hello Hackers,\nSeptember was a particularly busy month, especially for the Boston chapter. From the early stages of planning for Beyond40, we expected to really push our adversiting and evangelization in September because that is when students return to universities, and we expect universities to be a natural hotbed of FOSS activity.\nThe Boston Chapter # Here in the Boston Chapter, we started completely from scratch and achieved something stable. Last year at Northeastern University, there was an attempt at organizing a FOSS club, and it failed for several reasons, which we wanted to avoid this year.\nThe primary one was that, do to being an \u0026ldquo;official\u0026rdquo; club of the school, the club was under its iron grip. Because of the fairly archaic room-booking process, the club was restricted to only meeting once every 2 weeks at a time that was inconvenient for most members. Also, letting non-Northeastern students join the club had to be done in secret, and the club leadership was concerned that having a public-facing Discourse, Mastodon, or other communication platform would reveal that non-Northeastern students were active in the club.\nAdvice for Beyond40 Chapters on University Campuses # Registering with the School is Probably not Worth it # It is worth stating that a huge advantage of organizing a group of young people (AKA few responsibilites) who are all in close physical proximity to each other is that meetings can be formed spontaneously without being planned ahead of time. In university campuses, Beyond40 chapters should use this to their advantage.\nAs described above, registering as an official club stands fully against that. There are of course benefits to being a club, such as funding from the school, but registering should be done with very significant contemplation beforehand. Therefore, in the author\u0026rsquo;s (Zachary Liebl\u0026rsquo;s) opinion, it is not worth registering with the school.\nIn the Boston chapter, this allows us to meet both spontaneously and consistently. We had a meeting every Wednesday in September, but (technically this happened early October) there was a major FOSS conference nearby Northeastern and some FOSS-interested people just happened to be in town. Therefore on a 4-hour notice we called a meeting and invited the out-of-towners (and they showed up).\nThe way we achieve this (despite not having a room booked beforehand) is that we advertise that we will meet on a certain floor of a certain builing (we announce this a week ahead of time). There are about 7 classrooms on that floor, and we do not know which ones will be full beforehand. Then 10 minutes before the meeting starts, one of our members will check the classrooms to find an empty one. Then they will post the room number on our Signal chat. If the interested attendee is not in the Signal group, then we can meet them at the staircase and walk them to the room. Since the room is not booked ahead of time, this strategy works for spontaneous meetings, as we do not have to wait for the school to approve our room booking.\nIn short be creative with how you pick a meeting space. It will probably work out.\nNot registering with the school also allows us to easy and trivially invite guest speakers and to invite students from other schools.\nClear, Easy Communication is Key # All of our members are in a Signal group chat. If your members have concerns about blobs in Signal, know that there is a 100% FOSS Signal client called Molly. This allows us to quickly and easily push meeting times.\nThere are other FOSS communication options like Matrix and XMPP, but in real-world testing Signal has worked the best for us.\nAny organization will fall apart without clear communication channels\nMiscellaneous About the Boston Chapter # I (Zachary Liebl was the main organizer of the Boston chapter). However, I knew that I would be leaving Boston for 6 months starting in early October. Therefore I needed to start the whole thing and find a successor in about a month. This actually did work, and Jayden, one of our regular members, is now the main contact for the club. Yet, the other club members are very engaged and it is unlikely that the chapter\u0026rsquo;s decisions will be so top-down as when I was leading it and made all the decisions.\n","date":"8 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/recap/boston-september-2025/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"First Month in Boston: Some Chapter Reflections","type":"blog"},{"content":"The Free Software advocacy work I\u0026rsquo;m doing in southern rural Missouri kicked off back in June with the thought that I\u0026rsquo;d like to find oldish, unused computers and UpCycle them for free give-away after installing GNU/Linux Mint. Alongside of the UpCycling I wanted to offer support and training in the form of informational presentations that might also serve as general outreach to the community. As the project evolved in those first weeks I alse began to consider the possiblity of building a local user group that could share knowledge with one another and expand outward from there.\nI\u0026rsquo;m in Fredericktown, a small town of 4,500 about 90 miles south of St. Louis. Like much of rural America it\u0026rsquo;s a fairly economically depressed area and Lots of folks here are either using older computers or have just switched to a mobile phone for their computing. UpCycling old hardware with a secure operating system that will allow contiuned safe use is a great solution for people who cannot easily buy a new computer. It\u0026rsquo;s also worth noting that, again true of much of the rural midwest, this area began largely as a farming community and that continues to some extent.\nMy initial plan was to work with the local branch of the Ozark Regional Library as well as with Madison County Recovery Allies, a non-profit that supports adults in the county who are working through drug and alcohol recovery. I spent June and July creating basic outreach materials: a small sub-site within the larger library website, flyers, promotional images and the first presentation for August which would be a simple Introduction to GNU/Linux Download ODP with a brief bit of history and explanation of the OS in use. This was followed in September by an Introduction to Privacy and Security which touched on GNU/Linux and Free Software as a secure, privacy respecting OS.\nIn August we recieved our first donated computers which were successfully upgraded and put to use in a small space for the clients at the recovery non-profit. Shortly after a few more were donated and upgraded. Those will be given away in October and November. In August I also began assisted upgrades for folks that owned an older, unsupported computer that they wanted to keep but upgrade for their continued use. 4 computers have been upgraded through that offering.\nFrom these efforts I\u0026rsquo;ve been able to make contact with a handful of people interested in meeting and learning. I\u0026rsquo;ve just set up a Signal group for ongoing discussion of free software, computing and privacy/security between our events. We\u0026rsquo;ll also be using that group for planning future events. Currently that core group consist of four folks. It\u0026rsquo;s been slower going than I\u0026rsquo;d hoped but I suspect that over time we\u0026rsquo;ll be able to grow the group. My plan is to continue with at least one presentation per month along with two or more days a month that I\u0026rsquo;m thinking will be a sort of Office hours at the Library. I\u0026rsquo;ll promote those days as assisted GNU/Linux install days as well as a time and space for discussion and support for anyone that just wants to learn or hang out.\nWhen I first proposed this project to the MCRA and ORL I had not considered the possiblity that it would be anything other than a local UpCycling effort. Yes, I wanted to offer support and training to new users but it had not occurred to me in those first few weeks that such a project could also serve as Free Software advocacy or connect in with the larger Free Software movement. I had not yet begun to think of myself as a Free Software activist yet, but, rather, just a local enthusiast that wanted to help other locals that were likely struggling financially. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t so much about advocating Free Software as it was helping local working people improve the privacy and safety of their home computing.\nThat very practical starting point grew as I learned more about the fact that there was an organized effort to share and advocate for Free Software and why such advocacy was important. I understood the economic benefits for working people as well as the importance of responsible resource use. But I\u0026rsquo;d not really grasped the full depth of the ethics that Free Software is based on or the wide-ranging implications for users and society. I\u0026rsquo;d not grasped that it was not just better computing.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve unintentionally written this from the perspective of a new Free Software activist because, over the course of 5 months, I unintentionally transitioned from being a new GNU/Linux Free Software user to being a sharer to an advocate and an activist. I did not set out to join the the Free Software Foundation or create the Missouri Chapter of Beyond40.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a slippery slope, but in a good way. I\u0026rsquo;m realizing that while I want to continue towards my initial goal of creating a local user group and that the visibilty of such user groups is its own form of advocacy, it\u0026rsquo;s not enough. That alone does not build the Free Software movement. We also need to make the argument, to prove the deeper points that inspire others to do the same. I can\u0026rsquo;t be the only activist in my community. I\u0026rsquo;ll need to persuade others that what\u0026rsquo;s needed is the building of a movement.\nWe also have to help connect the dots on the map. My community is just one of many in Missouri. We start with our local but if we\u0026rsquo;re not connecting beyond the local then we\u0026rsquo;re falling short. But the good news is that as we find our way forward building successes in our different communities we should be able to learn from one another. Similar communites might find success in similar methods, strategies and processes.\n","date":"8 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/recap/missouri-september-2025/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"First Month in St. Louis: Some Chapter Reflections","type":"blog"},{"content":"","date":"8 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/zachliebl/","section":"Authors","summary":"","title":"Zachliebl","type":"authors"},{"content":"The following has been extracted from a talk given at the FSF40 celebration. Original slides are linked here.\nBeyond40 is a group that sets out to accomplish very ambitious things. Besides the general vision presented on our about page, we want to:\nHelp rebuild a base of power in the US to take on Silicon Valley Revive a spirit of open debate in the movement Serve as a testing grounds for new strategies and ideas Provide a pipeline to help convert free-software enthusiasts into free-software activists Support, connect, and lobby existing organizations in the FOSS space We are not looking to:\nSimply act as a network of LUGs or free-software/Linux hobbyist groups. There\u0026rsquo;s already plenty of those. Act as an \u0026ldquo;evangelization team\u0026rdquo; for free software. There\u0026rsquo;s many needs and skills other than marketing that have been underserved in the FOSS landscape. What we are is a big-tent group of free-software activists who want to repair infrastructure across the movement as a whole via direct-action and other low-overhead tactics. We borrow playbooks used by various other grassroots political associations to accomplish this.\nWe start by forming, local in-person chapters across the country, linking up organizers via Signal This supports social infrastructure: organizers share information, establish connections, and coordinate with each other to take larger action. These chapters in turn then hold regular discussions focused on various topics, issues, and ideas in the space This supports ideological infrastructure: members are educated, ideas are tested and built on, and strategies are developed. As time goes on, chapters begin organizing to take action both in their local communities and to support others in the space This supports technical infrastructure: training developers, contributing to projects, hosting services, assisting migrations That\u0026rsquo;s the bird\u0026rsquo;s-eye-view but here\u0026rsquo;s what it looks like broken down into a stage-by-stage roadmap:\nSeed Communities Take Action Establish Credibility Wield Influence Stage 1: Seed Communities # Locate and reach out to local organizers across the country Assist them with finding 3-4 “core” founding members to start a chapter Begin regularly meeting, break the ice Set the culture, introduce ideas, and encourage discussion! Stage 2: Take Action # Get members’ feet wet with taking initiative and contributing to group Pivot discussions from ideas to strategy, start identifying areas of “outsized opportunity” Work with local organizations and assist smaller actors in the FOSS space Stage 3: Establish Credibility # Start experimenting with cross-chapter collaboration Retain and foster connections from previous outreach efforts, work to bridge different actors and groups in the space Slowly work our way up to more and more ambitious projects, making sure publicize our efforts Stage 4: Wield Influence # This is where we all aspire to be! Having built some base of leverage, we become far more capable of long-term planning, partnerships, and coordination Past these general tentpoles, we\u0026rsquo;ll have to improvise as we go and continually revise with experience. Obviously, everything isn\u0026rsquo;t covered here but hopefully this at least orients you in the right direction in terms of understanding what we\u0026rsquo;re trying to do!\n","date":"4 September 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/roadmap/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"Our Roadmap","type":"blog"},{"content":"August has now just ended, and (just like we planned in June) soon we\u0026rsquo;ll be actually getting our fall chapter launches off the ground. Let\u0026rsquo;s go over everything we\u0026rsquo;ve done so far to prepare over the course of the past month!\nWhat we\u0026rsquo;ve done over the month:\nWe visited the HOPE_16 conference and held an informal roundtable in which we got members of the community to discuss FOSS advocacy and possibilities for organizing towards that end. By doing this, we recruited a ton of new members and might have enough people to begin planning a NY chapter soon! We\u0026rsquo;ve gone ahead and created a group calendar for members to more easily track upcoming events rather than having to rely on following the Signal group. We recruited @beardystarstuff, who currently runs a group in Missouri. Missouri is now one of our chapters, and he has some events set up where he\u0026rsquo;s planning to help set up workshops to assist people in switching off Windows. Both the Boston and D.C. chapters have their initial meetings scheduled for the first week of September, and have enough members to launch. What discussions we\u0026rsquo;ve had:\nA large point of discussion has been figuring out how to best encourage widespread engagement among members. How do we best get members comfortable with starting and organizing projects/events? How do we make sure everyone is able to keep up with the pace of the group\u0026rsquo;s discussion, even if they aren\u0026rsquo;t regularly checking the chat? How do we still give members without a chapter something to do and include them in discussions? How do we most effectively make plans and schedule events in a fashion whereby everyone is able to make it? During the roundtable at HOPE_16, we talked a lot about the role of idealism in FOSS advocacy, and how to balance it against pragmatic concerns. We talked about the pitfalls other organizations have fallen into and discussed the ways in which we can avoid repeating those mistakes. What we want to get done in the near future:\nAll hands are on deck for the chapter launches. We need to get into a rhythm of regularly meeting and breaking the ice between local chapter members. Following that, we can begin to expand our activities. We still need to work with the organizers trying to get South Florida and Central Illinois chapters off the ground. The HOPE conference provided a key contact in South Florida, so we\u0026rsquo;ve put him in touch with Laura and will see if their combined efforts will yield enough members to begin launching. We need to work with the various members around NYC to begin organizing a chapter for the area, this is looking to be one of the most promising areas. Identifying someone willing to run the chapter is a key priority. We have plans in place to get the \u0026ldquo;book club\u0026rdquo; off the ground in September. We have someone willing to regularly run it beginning towards the end of September, but in the meantime Laura is planning a presentation on Linux From Scratch to act as an icebreaker of sorts. We\u0026rsquo;re hoping this will connect chapter-less members to the wider community and also help to provide people with new venues for engagement and discussion. ","date":"3 September 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/recap/august-2025/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"Beyond40 Monthly Recap: August 2025","type":"blog"},{"content":"This is the first of a series of posts we\u0026rsquo;ll be doing recapping giving you a peek behind the curtain! Each month we\u0026rsquo;ll be quickly recapping the progress we made, the goals we have, and what still needs to be done to reach there.\nAs a group, we\u0026rsquo;re looking to use the summer to essentially get the preparations in place for a \u0026ldquo;launch\u0026rdquo;. By fall, we\u0026rsquo;re hoping to have enough of a foundation that we can start meeting, build a group culture, and channel that energy into creative action.\nBefore we can do that, we do need to bring organizers into our network and get ready to plant a handful of chapters as a pilot. Ideally, pre-launch, these chapters should each have 3-4 core \u0026ldquo;members\u0026rdquo; they can rely on should recruiting get tough. We also need to consider what documents or information we want to prepare ahead of time, so chapters aren\u0026rsquo;t essentially left rudderless should push come to shove.\nWhat we\u0026rsquo;ve done over the month:\nThe biggest milestone is that we got the website up with remarkable turnaround. This\u0026rsquo;ll allow us to reach out to organizers and be able to simply link the site with the contained pitch, as opposed to having to do it on the spot. It also acts as a central hub whereby members can access group-level information. We\u0026rsquo;ve come a long way in growing our Signal network, and have four areas in which people have shown interest in starting chapters: South Florida, Central Illinois, DMV, and Boston. What discussions we\u0026rsquo;ve had:\nWe had a lot of discussions surrounding the identity of our group \u0026ndash; how wide of a tent we want to cast, what scope of issues we want to focus on, etc. One notable thing was how many of our members came into this with different ideas of what they would want to get out of it, but it seemed even then these interests could be reconciled. We also had a lot of discussions surrounding how quickly we want to scale: what kinds of ideas we\u0026rsquo;d want to execute on and on what timeframe. Once again, there was a variety of opinions on this but it seems as if we\u0026rsquo;re finding a good balance. What we want to get done in the near future:\nWe quickly need to do some final touchups on the website to give it more content before we start publicly sharing it around. Ideally this should take under a week. Getting people on the same schedule has been difficult, especially with our current (irregular) meetup model. We\u0026rsquo;re going to experiment with switching to monthly meetups. Laura of the Software Freedom Day Group has suggested we host our meetups during the SFDG monthly, so we\u0026rsquo;ll give that a try. Recruiting is the hardest task in all of this, and some groups need additional assistance with locating people. It\u0026rsquo;s like locating a needle in the haystack. Brainstorming possible other venues to find people is going to be crucial. We decided there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of value in holding a sort of virtual discussion group or \u0026ldquo;book club\u0026rdquo; amongst the organizers over the summer as a \u0026ldquo;trial\u0026rdquo; to see how meetings may go once fall comes. Ideally the logistics of this should be planned out while we polish up the site. ","date":"2 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/recap/june-2025/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"Beyond40 Monthly Recap: June 2025","type":"blog"},{"content":"Hello, we\u0026rsquo;ve gone ahead and created a blog section! Plans for the blog are still rather up in the air right now, but we\u0026rsquo;re hoping to use this as a space to:\nProvide concise monthly progress updates on what is going on behind the scenes Process the internal discussions, debates, and meeting notes into a public-facing medium Act as a platform for announcements and possibly member submissions Currently, the plan is to have the blog open to multiple writers, but we will see how things go. By the end of June, I\u0026rsquo;ll be posting a monthly progress update for June to give everyone out of the loop an idea of where we\u0026rsquo;re at.\n","date":"24 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/introducing-the-blog/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"Introducing the Beyond40 Blog!","type":"blog"},{"content":"","date":"12 June 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/groups/","section":"Groups","summary":"","title":"Groups","type":"groups"},{"content":" But now, the question remains of where do we go from here? Today, we live in a world more threatened by hostile technology than ever before. Big Tech has run amok, and the issues of \u0026lsquo;software freedom\u0026rsquo; \u0026ndash; long seen as a niche or technical issue \u0026ndash; are now hot-button issues in our politics and society.\nAmerica is home to Silicon Valley, where some of the largest tech companies reside. But despite that, it can often seem as if there\u0026rsquo;s no real organized resistance left in this country willing to fight on behalf of tech that puts people over profit. But, dig deep enough and you\u0026rsquo;ll see there has been a history of those willing to fight back. The only question left is if that torch can be carried into the future.\nIn order to build back a movement serious about fighting back, we need to bring people together, formulate strategies, and take action to build up infrastructure. All we need is you.\nWant to learn more?\nChapters # Massachusetts # Maryland # Don\u0026rsquo;t see your state? Find out how you can start your own!\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/","section":"","summary":"","title":"","type":"page"},{"content":"Beyond40 is a grassroots initiative which looks to pave the path forward for the resistance movement within tech. Or, to be more specific, we are a \u0026ldquo;caucus\u0026rdquo; that looks to act as a voice for the rank-and-file members of the free-software community.\nOur priority is building a pipeline that can convert free-software enthusiasts into free-software activists. By forming local chapters across America, that opens the door towards taking direct action to aid the rest of the movement.\nOur Principles # 1. We commit to the principles that underpin software freedom. # When you dig deep enough, it becomes clear that the problems of tech today are fundamentally problems of freedom.\nWe believe all users of software should have the right to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software they use on a day-to-day basis. We support this not just for practical, but also ideological reasons. It gives people both control and understanding over the technologies they routinely depend on and it also works to hold those who produce the software accountable to their users.\nBy extent we also oppose other roundabout ways companies try to infringe on user freedom: DRM schemes, JavaScript tracking, and repair-hostile hardware design.\n2. We are serious about actually getting stuff done. # There\u0026rsquo;s many in the FOSS (free and open-source software) space who prefer to focus on the hobbyist side of things. There\u0026rsquo;s nothing wrong with this, but as a group, we\u0026rsquo;re looking to direct our efforts with a goal in mind. We\u0026rsquo;re not just looking to \u0026lsquo;purify\u0026rsquo; our own software stacks, we\u0026rsquo;re looking to make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to cut their ties to the proprietary ecosystem.\nWe believe actions speak louder than words, and put less emphasis on policing terminology versus asking whether or not a proposed course of action will benefit us in the long run. We are willing to associate with and work with groups that may not align with us as long as there\u0026rsquo;s a reasonable common goal worth pooling our efforts towards.\n3. We believe a culture of open, informed, and vigorous debate is necessary in order to sustain a healthy movement. # The FOSS community has never been a monolith and neither has its opinions. In order to plan for the future, members need to be able to freely pick apart, challenge, defend, and reformulate various ideas pertaining to software design and how it functions with respect to society. As a result, we tend to take a relatively \u0026lsquo;big-tent\u0026rsquo; approach.\nIt is to be expected we\u0026rsquo;ll be working with a variety of ideas, strategies, and people, and that we allow an appropriate amount of space for members and chapters to experiment.\n4. We are a group that focuses on prioritizing \u0026lsquo;spadework\u0026rsquo;. # It\u0026rsquo;s very tempting when starting up an initiative like this to start fundraising or plan out big advertising blitzes. But what\u0026rsquo;s even more important are the tasks that go beyond just plain advocacy: seeding communities, ironing out theories, supporting FOSS developers, and providing opportunities to train talent.\nThis work might be less flashy, but it\u0026rsquo;s the true lifeblood of any movement that\u0026rsquo;s serious about working towards long-term results. You can\u0026rsquo;t artificially force growth the way you can\u0026rsquo;t force a flower to bloom in any season. But what is in your control is the \u0026lsquo;spadework\u0026rsquo;: digging the holes, providing the water, and taking all the necessary steps to lay a stable foundation for growth. That way, when spring does come, you\u0026rsquo;re in good shape to take full advantage of the opportunities presented to you.\nAn active and focused minority can often accomplish a lot more than a passive majority: sufficiently creative and determined activists can often find ways to carry out these tasks without even having to rely on financial or institutional backing. We don\u0026rsquo;t need to court everyone into our group (although we\u0026rsquo;d love to have anyone), we just need to make sure the people we do bring in are sufficiently committed towards pulling the levers of change.\nFAQ # 1. What even is \u0026lsquo;free-software\u0026rsquo;? # \u0026lsquo;Free-software\u0026rsquo; (also called \u0026rsquo;libre software\u0026rsquo;) isn\u0026rsquo;t just software that costs no money: it\u0026rsquo;s software that respects your freedom. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t restrict how you use it, it benefits from your tinkering, and it doesn\u0026rsquo;t try to harvest your data. Or more specifically, \u0026lsquo;free-software\u0026rsquo; guarantees you the right to run, copy, distribute, study, and change software.\n2. Why should I care about software freedom? # Whether we\u0026rsquo;re talking about the destructive effects of social media algorithms, the rise of mass surveillance, or the controversies surrounding AI, we are seeing that as long as tech remains relevant to our world, so too will the issues in tech.\nBeing able to see the code helps promote transparency and hold software suppliers to account. Being able to study the code helps promote technological literacy among users. Being able to copy and distribute the code encourages competition and innovation. Being able to edit the code gives you more control over the tools you depend on on a day to day basis.\nAfter all, you should control your computer \u0026ndash; not the other way around.\n3. Are you affiliated with any organization? # There\u0026rsquo;s many organizations in the FOSS space (the FSF, the DFF, the OSI, etc.). Many of our members even have a history of working with some of these groups, but we are not officially affiliated with any of them. We are technically not even an organization: instead, we prefer to refer to ourselves as a \u0026lsquo;caucus\u0026rsquo;.\nWe don\u0026rsquo;t seek to replace or compete with any of these organizations, but rather instead work from below to bring new talent, new ideas, and new strategies into the fold. We believe by doing things this way, we can act as an effective pathway to aid members of the community towards helping the larger cause.\n4. Can I join if I have only X experience? # Absolutely! We have people from all backgrounds in our group and you never know when a certain skillset can come handy. Not to mention what we\u0026rsquo;re doing is social: the act of building community with other people interested in our cause is inherently valuable, whether or not we think we can get a \u0026ldquo;practical benefit\u0026rdquo; out of it.\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/about/","section":"","summary":"","title":"About Us","type":"page"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/","section":"Blog","summary":"","title":"Blog","type":"blog"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Categories","type":"categories"},{"content":"We organize into local chapters because we believe one of the most valuable tasks we can do is rebuild the social network for the movement across the country. Forming local groups to regularly meet lays a foundation for strong communities who can then be motivated and equipped to reach out to their local communities and get stuff done.\nThe B40 Wiki acts as a medium-speed \u0026ldquo;forum\u0026rdquo; and central hub for all our operations \u0026ndash; we supply crowdsourced documentation, links, news, and requests for help on here.\nApart from that, we do most of our communications via Signal. These chats as a venue for free-software organizers across the United States to be able to talk to each other and share tips. If you\u0026rsquo;re interested in connecting with us, please fill out this interest form. Alternatively, you can directly reach out to any of the organizers to request an invite!\nUpcoming Events # You can see and subscribe to a list of our upcoming events/meetups on our group calendar.\nJoin a Chapter! # As of March 2026, we have two chapters offically active and regularly meeting:\nBoston Maryland We have members in various other areas looking to start chapters, all of which are listed on the dedicated wiki page.\nStarting a Chapter # If you don\u0026rsquo;t see your state listed above, that\u0026rsquo;s fine! We\u0026rsquo;re looking to eventually build out a network of people across the country, so we\u0026rsquo;d still love to have you. If you\u0026rsquo;d like to begin the work of starting your own chapter, read over our instructions for starting a chapter and then reach out to us!\nWebsite Feedback # Want to add the new chapter you\u0026rsquo;ve started, fix typos, or suggest more resources? Either file an issue or submit a pull request to our Codeberg repo!\n\u003c?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\"?\u003e Beyond40/pages-hugo-source Website for Beyond40. HTML 0 0 ","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/chapters/","section":"","summary":"","title":"Get Involved","type":"page"},{"content":" Events Calendar # Want to see the upcoming events for Beyond40? Needing to track when the next meeting is? All of our meetings, book clubs, and events can be found on our group calendar.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re able to subscribe (via email/ICS/Fediverse/RSS), auto-add events to your phone\u0026rsquo;s calendar, comment, and create meeting links all without needing to make an account.\nBy subscribing to our calendar, you\u0026rsquo;ll have one place where you can keep track of when we meet and what we\u0026rsquo;re doing.\nShared Resources # Almost all of our shared resources can be found on the B40 Wiki \u0026ndash; our central hub and knowledgebase. On here you can find guides, tips, links, and notes we pool to help each other out.\nWe also have a CryptPad as a sort of shared \u0026ldquo;Google Drive\u0026rdquo;. You can find the view-only link here to see and download what we have built up so far. There\u0026rsquo;s also an edit-link, but you will need to request it from someone who already has access.\nReading List # As with any other social movement, free-software is home to its own set of debates, concepts, terms, and theories. The following texts are provided if you\u0026rsquo;d like to be caught up to speed with the sorts of discussions we may end up having.\nTexts are curated based on their historical relevance to the movement, inclusion should not be necessarily taken as an endorsement of the views presented in said texts.\nWhat is Free Software? by the Free Software Foundation The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond Free Culture by Lawerence Lessig \u0026lsquo;Enshittification\u0026rsquo;: How Platforms Die by Cory Doctorow Coding Freedom by Gabriella Coleman ","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/resources/","section":"","summary":"","title":"Resources","type":"page"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Series","type":"series"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags","type":"tags"}]