2025-09-05 –, Aula
This talk explores the challenges and opportunities faced by the free software movement today. It offers a broad reflection on what "freedom" means in modern computing — and why it's more relevant than ever. Touching on questions of trust, corporate co-option, licenses, and the ethics of technology, it emphasizes the role of community engagement and governance structures. With urgency and clarity, it calls on developers to think beyond code and to take responsibility for the digital world we are collectively building.
The talk will be followed by an involved discussion with the audience.
Zoë Kooyman is the executive director of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). She has a deep interest in the visual and digital nature of modern society, and holds a Master of Arts in Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image from the University of Amsterdam. Here, her understanding of copyright was profoundly influenced by the concepts of copyleft and user freedom. She then spent the next years living and working around the world as a project director for a wide range of assignments, soaking up experiences along the way. She found her way to Boston and the FSF in 2019 as program manager and was named executive director in 2022.