This is the first year that the Free Software Foundation’s Board Meeting and Associate Member meeting has been significantly opened and now anyone from the public can attend and participate. The conference is called LibrePlanet 2009 and is now getting underway on March 21 and March 22. The event is broken up into two days. On Saturday, the conference follows a standard format with speakers from around the world talking about topics relevant to the free software community. On Sunday, the event becomes an Open Conference, encouraging participation and blurring the lines between organizers/presenters and audience.

North by South will participate in a panel on Saturday, discussing the free software movement in Latin America. On Sunday, NXS has proposed more discussion about what can be learned from the Latin American experience, as governments and communities in that region are the far-and-away leaders of free software adoption, revolutionizing their societies through expansive & progressive initiatives with free software at the core of technology policy.