ÖzgürKon 2026 is an international free software conference, organized by Özgür Yazılım Derneği (Free Software Association in Turkey), takes place between April 25-26, 2026 at Barış Manço Culture Center, Istanbul, Turkey. The conference will be held in English and Turkish. The call for participation is open to anyone who has a word to say on freedom. Participation and attendance is completely free (as in beer).
Five years have passed until the last edition of ÖzgürKon. ÖzgürKon, that is one of the first examples of online conferences during the pandemic was organized for the last time in 2021, unfortunately due to the inflation also affects the online conferences. Within the period when comperably smaller events regarding the free software community and for-profit, advertisement oriented huge sized events with extraordinary budgets and overcharged ticket prices; the integrity and contiunity of the free software groups have stalled due to the disappearence of regular and bigger events that are the base and meeting points of the community.
All these updates have required one more time, a conference to happen again, where free software will be spoken, its future, continuity and policies are discussed. ÖzgürKon kicks off again to cherish the taken heritage from previous movements and pass it to the future.
Within the time passed and changing conditions, the spread of generative systems so called “artificial intelligence” starting from large language models have advanced the free software struggle into a new stage. In the 40th anniversary of its definition, the free software movement needs unity and solidarity against the deviations from community-oriented pragmatic idealism to oportunism, and the movements that do not care about user’s freedom and common benefits, more than ever.
In this sense, talks, seminars, workshops and other proposals about topics starting from free software; including but not limited to free knowledge, free art, free Internet, freedom of speech, freedom of the press can be a part of ÖzgürKon. If you have a word on freedom, ÖzgürKon is yours.