From Brussels to Bolzano: Router Freedom, young hackers and our community
October is here and with it, our reflection on the last
twelve months: check out our Software Freedom report to find out
everything that happened in the last 365 days, and read the coming news
about YH4F. Our latest podcast episodes are also out: one about our
local Danish group and another about the European Digital Networks
Act.

Every autumn feels like a turning point. The summer conferences are
behind us, the fall and winter ones are coming up, and our yearly
report, Software
Freedom in Europe 2026, is out. In it, we look back at the work done
by all our volunteers and employees over the last twelve months. We
could not be more proud of this work, which is only possible thanks to
everyone who has supported us over the last 25 years!
Volunteers are the foundation of our work. In one of our latest
episodes of the Software Freedom Podcast, Bonnie Mehring sits down with
one of our core volunteers: Carsten Agger, our Danish coordinator. They
talk about how the local group in Aarhus began, why Denmark is taking a
growing interest in digital independence, and what Free Software can
mean for the public sector. Listen to
episode 55 for a closer look at what local engagement looks like and
to learn more about one of the people who is at the hear of this
journey.
Our other new episode takes us from local groups to Brussels, and to
a question that affects everyone with an internet connection: who
decides which router you can use? In it, we talk about Router Freedom,
the upcoming Digital Networks Act (DNA) which provides an opportunity to
close the fragmentation gap that has weakened Router Freedom since the
last telecoms reform, and our efforts to anchor the network termination
point (NTP) at the passive physical point of the network by default
across all Member States. Listen to the
episode or read our position
on the Digital Networks Act.
More podcast episodes but this time from the outside world 😉.
Jithendra joined Dr. Simonetta Vezzoso for episode 6 of the
DMA Vox Populi podcast. They discussed the role of civil society in
litigation under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the factual and
technical contributions civil society organisations can make, and the
challenges they face, particularly when it comes to funding their
participation.
Back to our volunteer work but this time in Italy, thanks to Giacomo
Alessandroni, Youth
Hacking 4 Freedom is
now part of the Italian national PCTO programme. This means Italian
students can earn school credits for developing Free Software projects:
and any Italian school can now add YH4F to its activities. You can read the full
story and see how it works. While we wait for the new edition to
start, the YH4F 2026 winners will be announced very soon.
Speaking of Italy, we are getting ready to head to Bolzano for SFSCON
2026, where our team and volunteers will give several talks, meet our
Italian community, and talk with people who care about Software Freedom.
You can find all our talks and the rest of our events on our events page. Come by
our booth, say hello, and be one of the first to get our new
merchandise!

Our info material made it into Tampere (Finland). Thanks to
a Free Software advocate, FSFE’s stickers are not all around different
spots there
And while you wait for Bolzano, you can relive some of what happened
in the last months. The recordings of some of our talks are out: Bonnie
at DevConf.CZ 2026 on engaging Gen Z
and Alpha with Free Software, Alex on Free Software and
the CRA, and Florian on what the FSFE and
Star Trek have in common at FrOSCon 2026, while Ana talked about the presence of
the FSFE on the Fediverse at Fediday 2026! You can find them all at
media.fsfe.org. Grab a coffee and press play.

Dario attended the
11th
edition of Software Freedom Kosova in Pristina ith a talk on our
25-year history

Some of our Belgium volunteers attended CoderDojo 2026, where they hosted an
Ada & Zangemann reading and presented our programming competition
Youth Hacking 4 Freedom
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Your editor,
Ana
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