Tech team intern Nick Shrader shares why free software is important
Hello all! My name is Nick Shrader, and I've recently completed my internship with the Free Software Foundation (FSF) tech team from December 12, 2022 to March 3, 2023. I also assisted the tech team at this year's LibrePlanet conference in person in Boston, MA, which was held March 18-19, just a few weeks after completing my internship.
I am thirty-three and relatively new to free software. I became interested in free software approximately four years ago, after a bad case of proprietary software rot led me to start my journey up the freedom ladder. My Windows 8 computer had started routinely giving me one-hour-or-longer software upgrades. I had already reinstalled the operating system (OS) maybe twice when I thought, "Am I getting prodded into upgrading the OS on my fairly new computer already?" The computer was only a year or two old, so I expected it to work without unwanted "upgrades." Mainly, I used my computer for music production and gaming, and, after some cursory Internet searches, I found that the software I needed for those were available on free operating systems. Soon thereafter, I installed a distribution of GNU/Linux. Nowadays, for music production I use Ardour, and for gaming I use Freeciv, Red Eclipse, and Warzone 2100. Moreover, my free operating system doesn't prod me into unwanted "upgrades."