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This Software Freedom Day, Érudit and PKP get together as Coalition Publica to share why software freedom matters to us, and how it is at the heart of our efforts. Continue on to learn what it means to use free software, and for personalized messages from folks across our teams.

Software Freedom Day happens this year on September 20th, 2025. But what does it mean to use free software?

As the Software Freedom Day website (and past PKP post) makes clear,

« To use free software is to make a political and ethical choice asserting the right to learn, and share what we learn with others. »

In a practical sense, using free software means that the user is free to:

Use – the user is free to run the program the way they want, for any purpose.
Study – the user is free to learn how the program works, as well as modify it.
Distribute – the user is free to redistribute copies for others to use.
Modify – the user is free to share their modified versions to others.
Access – the user is free to access the software’s source code.

To go further, and give a sense of what free software means to the people behind Érudit, PKP, and Coalition Publica, we asked folks from across our teams to speak from their hearts.

Davin Baragiotta, Chief information officer, Érudit

“Open source software is everywhere at Érudit. Server and workstation operating systems, cybersecurity, data repositories, search engines, web applications, collaboration and project management tools... It gives us independence and longevity through the ability to collaborate with software authors and the transparency of the code and its documentation. We are proud users and promoters of this software, building a national infrastructure managed by and for the academic world.”

Suzanne Beth, Senior Coordinator, Research, Érudit

“Free software is essential because it concretely embodies the possibility of diverging and doing things differently: it frees us from the confinement imposed by the hegemonic posture of dominant actors, who make us believe that there is only one way of doing things and one possible world.”

Pedro López Casique, Publication Support Specialist, PKP

“On Software Freedom Day, I want to recognize the importance of the GNU Project initiative for the free use, study, distribution, and modification of software. Today, the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) continues that mission by creating open tools that strengthen scientific communication. These efforts reaffirm the global commitment to free, responsible, and sustainable access to knowledge. It's an honor to contribute to PKP and the global free software movement.”

Israel Cefrin, Digital Accessibility and Systems Specialist, PKP

“To me, software freedom is inseparable from accessibility. OJS, as an Open-source tool, can provide us with the ability to make the knowledge available and accessible for a broader range of people, not just a few. As someone who cares deeply about digital accessibility and public knowledge, I value PKP’s role in showing how free software can expand equity in research and scholarly communication.”

David Cormier, Information systems architect, Érudit

“I believe that free software and the values it embodies are essential in an era where large parts of our lives are mediated by opaque algorithms whose purposes escape us. I am proud that my work can contribute to the development of an open, emancipatory research infrastructure that serves the public.”

Jeanette Hatherill, Senior Coordinator, Coalition Publica

“To celebrate software freedom is to celebrate the people behind it, and I'm proud to be part of a global collaboration that champions open source citizenship so that everyone can access and meaningfully contribute to open knowledge. The use of free software is to make a political and ethical choice asserting the right to learn, and share what we learn with others, and this is core to Coalition Publica and our work to make diamond open access a reality for Canadian scholars.”

Zoe Wake Hyde, Open Monograph Press (OMP) Coordinator, PKP

“The more important something is to our functioning as citizens and communities, the more important it is for it to be free (as in freedom!). So much of our lives is shaped by the software we use daily, and software freedom means greater self-determination, control and safety – all of which are in short supply in the current tech landscape. Free and open-source software (FOSS) is critically important to knowledge justice and should be celebrated.”

Urooj Nizami, Community Engagement and Outreach Associate Director, PKP

“For me, software freedom is about having autonomy from dominant, centralized publishing systems. I’m proud to be part of PKP because it shows what distributed sovereignty can look like through free and open-source software. Our tools help foster an ecosystem of bibliodiversity that rejects extractive models that exploit the Global South, instead creating new paradigms of exchange and collaboration.”

Alec Smecher, Development Associate Director, PKP

“To me, Free Software is the engine driving the Internet's naive promise back in the '90s to democratize information. Without it, the Internet is just cable TV reinvented, and the Free Software movement needs to stay strong to deliver on that original promise. Discovering the parallel Open Science and Open Access movements with PKP has been a revelation for this lifelong FOSS nerd. We are the same.”

If you support, or are part of, our communities, please share these messages on the importance of free software! Using the hashtags #SFD2025, #SoftwareFreedomDay2025, #FOSS and #FLOSS will help spread the word.

Thank you for being part of our communities and celebrating with us!