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Keynote by Free Software Foundation
The closing keynote for LibrePlanet 2022 was given by Zoë Kooyman, the newly appointed executive director of the FSF. Zoë began by congratulating yesterday's FSF award winners, thanking our keynotes Marleen Stikker and Hundred Rabbits, and thanking all of the day's other speakers.
She spoke about how free software is relevant in many aspects of our daily lives, and emphasized two critical areas: education and government, for which the free software movement is continuing to work toward a more just digital society. She mentioned how digital books are "riddled with Digital Restrictions Management (DRM)," the challenges that increased online proctoring bring to privacy and software freedom, and the need for wider adoption of freedom-respecting ways of doing videoconferencing in education.
Zoë said that she has "an endless amount of examples and reasons to believe that free software is the way forward, worth protecting, and something we need to make sure people understand how to fight for," and went on to list numerous other reasons for people to fight for free software. These included license adoption and copyleft, the environment, right to repair, software-embedded medical devices, bulk surveillance and encryption, among others.
She concluded her talk by thanking FSF staff, volunteers, and contributors.
In his closing remarks, FSF president, Geoffrey Knauth, highlighted the importance of the free software community's efforts, and the role the FSF plays in them, saying that, "as the host and facilitator of LibrePlanet, the FSF is proud to elevate and showcase the voices of the free software community at this annual event. The FSF staff works extremely hard to create and support the program and they deserve our thanks and appreciation. Knauth also emphasized that "we will carry these conversations forward beyond this weekend. The staff is working hard to provide you with more free software community gatherings."