History and motivation
The idea
When in 2017 neighbours petitioned support for an urban vegetable garden, they used a proprietary online form platform to gather signatures. Soon after, to their dismay, they discovered that after a certain number of signatures had been collected, the company demanded money, or else.
Seeing their dilemma, at the local Hacklab we thought, “Hey, it can’t be that difficult to build an alternative software for just a handful of people.”, so we made a prototype. Development then began in earnest two years later.
Interest in the project has been both unexpected and widespread. LiberaForms is actively developed and mantained to this day.
Context and motivation
Forms are everywhere in today’s online world. From inscriptions and surveys, to reservations, to name a few.
More often that not, we turn to products owned by multinational companies to publish our forms, either because those services are better known or apparently free.
But depending on the company, their objectives include commodifying our attention, cultivating addiction, and influencing our thoughts and opinions. We pay for our forms with the data we collect; data that is in turn maliciously used against us.
However, despite their position of dominance and systematic abuse, we know that digital technologies can also be used to treat people with goodwill!
LiberaForms is built to be part of an Internet free from intrusion and surveillance.
Chronology
Since the initial idea the project has grown. Listed here are some of the highlights.
See the blog for a complete list of changes made to the application.
2019-2020
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Version 1.0.0 is released under the name GNGforms.
(recursive humor: GNGforms is Not Googleforms).
2020-2021
- The first forms are publish by local entities.
- The organizations Code Rood and Komun deploy the first installations.
- We receive funding from NLnet.
- The project gets renamed LiberaForms; it’s prettier, easier on the tounge, and doesn’t reference Google.
2021-2022
- The first organizations subscribe to our services.
- Andoni joins the team and begins work on the localization of the software.
- We start to use Weblate to manage translations.
- We receive funding from Dapsi.
- We receive a new round of funding from NLnet.
2022-2023
- David joins the team to help refine our business model, write our Terms of Service and Privacy policy, and oversee the intergration of the GDPR in the software.
- Antonio redesigns LiberaForms’ user interface.
- Donations are made possible via OpenCollective.
- We release a built in Privacy statement wizard to help people write their policies.
2024-2025
- Evilham lays the foundations for E2EE answers and designs our key sharing mechanism.
- Kapis builds the map form field.
- We sign an open letter in defence of European funding of free software.
- Framasoft sets up an installation to try out LiberaForms.
- We receive a new round of funding from NLnet.