We want to warmly invite you to the first feminist linux meetup of 2026. lorb will be giving a talk about FLOSS and Linux. This is the first of our 6 sessions in 2026, check out the announcement for the whole cycle here https://feminist-linux.diebin.at/2025/12/20/save-the-dates-meetup-cycle-2026/

About the talk

Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) and Linux are often celebrated as technical successes and as proof that collaborative, decentralized development can outperform proprietary models. This talk explores why FLOSS has been so successful and looks at the political and societal values and ideas that are at the foundation of this way to develop software. As part of this it also offers a feminist critique of the less welcoming aspects. We will see how the movement enforces its values, both the good and the bad and how the movement can evolve and overcome structural problems of the past.

Schedule

• 17:30 : Arrival and open chatting
• 18:00 : General intro to the Feminist Linux Meetup and intro of participants
• 18:10 : Talk and open space for discussion afterwards

Location information

 at Vordere Zollamtstraße 7, in the room Flux1 on the 3rd floor. The room is in a building of the
University of Applied Arts next to Wien Mitte / The Mall, here on the map: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/176477793

(*) Invitation policy and social conduct

The meetup (and workshop) is open to all women*, non-binary*, inter*, and trans* people, who are interested to talk about Linux and related topics. In this case, non-binary does mean that you neither fully identify as „woman“ or „man“. It does not mean, that you only programme in fuzzy-logic and don’t use binary numbers. This would of course be fantasticly queer, but believe us, our computers also work with binary code most of the time.

With the * we mark certain words to point to the fact, that all these categories are socially constructed. That means, that they do not exist „in nature“, but that we humans interpret nature in this specific way. Therefore it is also legitimate, that people choose these categories for themselves in a way that best fits them. If that unsettles you or you want to know more about it, take a look at our article on invitation policy: https://feminist-linux.diebin.at/invitation-policy/

Beyond that, we want to create an atmosphere and environment that is encouraging everyone. To do so, we created a Code of Conduct, that describes what we all can do, that no one has to be uncomfortable: https://feminist-linux.diebin.at/code-of-conduct/

In order for everyone to feel really welcome and accepted though, we want to be actively aware and foster a social environment that we describe here: https://feminist-linux.diebin.at/social-framework/

To smoothen out the organization work behind this meetup, there will be a few differences in how the meetup is run in 2026! Instead of agreeing on a date each month, we have decided to host the meetup every first Wednesday of the month at 6pm. This i

In the past, the meetup was primarily held in German as the meetup initially attracted a more German-speaking crowd. This does not hold true now for the regular members of the meetup, so we have decided to do most of the communication in English but in case you feel more comfortable asking questions in German, that will also be possible. We will announce the language of each session’s talk separately.

Our goal is to make the meetup accessible to as many people as possible and have concluded that universities tend to have the most wheelchair accessible facilities. The meetups will be hosted at the Angewandte art university in Vordere Zollamtstraße 7. Due to room availability, the exact room will vary per session, but all locations will be wheelchair accessible.

We realize that an (art) academy may not be the most inviting space if you have not navigated this type of environment before. Our meetup is not tied to the university or any set curriculum and there are no knowledge prerequisites. We believe that people who don’t program (yet) also have a say in how digital spaces and software should be developed and recognize that everyone has a technical background of some kind, even if it isn’t of the „straightforward“ or institutionally legible type. Please let us know if there is any way we can make you feel more comfortable in this space.

We have planned a six-month cycle for January to June of 2026. This is an outline of the planned schedule (that might still be subject to change).

• 7.1.2026 – Free Software and Linux
• 4.2.2026 – Text wrangling with Vim
• 4.3.2026 – LaTeX hangout
• 1.4.2026 – Alternative input sources for computing
• 6.5.2026 – Intro to Cryptography
• 3.6.2026 – Soldering Workshop

We will start off by thinking about the political and societal values that form the basis for Free/Libre and Open Source Software. The talk will also offer a feminist critique of the less welcoming aspects of the movement. We will have a session about text editing and manipulating: how can we get tedious, routine tasks done more quickly so we can make time for more fun? The session will focus on Vim, a text editor with various modes, which is almost a glitch in the history of software. We will also have a laid-back LaTeX meetup to explore what typesetting opportunities lie outside of the closed ecosystems of Microsoft Word and Adobe tools and their exorbitant licensing fees. Another session will focus on the sensory side of computing. Well-established ways of interfacing with computers, such as keyboards and trackpads, have effectively become naturalized. We will try to examine these as a historically contingent techniques and explore alternative input sources. We will also have a session on cryptography, the theoretical foundation supporting encrypted online communication, among other things. To bring things back into the physical realm, we will finish with an introduction to soldering workshop.

Our lives are mediated by software in exceedingly confounding ways. We hope this space can be a way to explore different, more emancipatory approaches to technology. We hope to see you at some of the sessions!

With the next international feminist action day coming up, we want to call for a broader, regular feminist IT meetup/networking/exchange/*. This is not one of our regular feminist linux meetups, we want to initiate something that is connecting all those different initiatives out there. So we are inviting all women* and non-binary* folks (details on invitation policy below) to join us on

Due to popular demand we are organising another installment of our recent Docker Intro Workshop, this time in a hybrid format so that people who cannot attend physically have an option to take part too. Also, to make it even more popular, we are teaming up with Women && Code and the Angewandte’s base dev team, who will co-host the workshop at the Angewandte (University of Applied Arts Vienna).

The workshop itself will be held in a hybrid format, so you can either attend in person or over Zoom. The Women && Code will host a summer party on site in the afternoon, which can be attended in person.

So, here the details and abouts:

For our next meetup on July 5th we want to get together again to watch and discuss a recorded talk. This time it will be „Futures, Imagined: Disability, Eugenics, & Science Fiction“ by Ruadhán J. Flynn, who presented this talk on May 14th 2024, as part of the STIR Public Lecture series, hosted by the office of Diversity, Equal Opportunities and Inclusion at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

In this edition we want to pair a talk about clouds and virtualisation with a Docker Intro Workshop. On a Friday evening jackie will give a talk to shine some light on this ominous „cloud“ thingy, and on the next day we want to take 4 hours for a Docker Intro Workshop in which participants learn to spin up their first docker containers and use docker compose to build some basic service ensembles.

While the talk on Friday is more like in the format of our usual meetups, and you can just show up, for the workshop on Saturday we need to limit the number of participants and therefore ask you to register. If you want to attend the workshop, please also come for the talk (and bring your device), as we will have time for some setup afterwards.

Und auch im März geht es gleich mit einem aufgezeichneten Talk aus dem WWW weiter, diesmal aus dem hochaktuellen Fundus der Aufzeichnungen vom letzten (dem 37.) Chaos Communication Congress:

Im Talk Unsere Worte sind unsere Waffen gibt uns Eva Wolfangel Einblicke darin, wie „wir Chatbots allein mit kreativer Wortfindung so manipulieren können, dass sie uns dienen (ja, social engineering funktioniert bei großen Sprachmodellen!)“

Die Raum-Zeit-Koordination für das Meetup:

• am Fr, 22. März 2024 um 18 Uhr
• im Gemeinschaftsraum Erdgeschoß
• bei Hermann-Glück-Weg 6/4, 1120 Wien
• Details zu Anfahrt, Raum und Umgebung unter (*2)

Der konkrete Zeitplan für das Meetup schaut dann so aus:

Am 22. März werden wir uns abends wieder einen Talk ansehen und diskutieren, und am 19./20. wird endlich die ausgefallene Cloud-Talk-und-Docker-Workshop-Kombi nachgeholt, die ursprünglich im Juni 2022 geplant war, allerdings mit kleineren Modifikationen. Der Talk wird Freitag abends stattfinden, der Workshop selbst Samstag nachmittags, beide vor Ort in Wien. Ankündigungen mit Details folgen in den kommenden Wochen.