Our Mission

Our mission is to reach out and make technology accessible and easy to understand. We seek to provide resources and guidance on computer safety, guides on various software, at whatever level of complexity is right for you. You can get involved as much as you'd like! Whether you want to help out with research, or writing guides, or perhaps you're a developer and want to help improve software, we'd be happy to have your support.

How we operate

We have three main branches: The Documentation Group, the Research Group, and the Software Development Group. Members of FASSAG can participate in one or more of these groups.

Contributing

If you're a user of free software, you can contribute to our mission as part of the Research Group by suggesting software for us to suggest, document or improve, and providing reports of experiences with software. This will help shape our priorities and focus and ensure it is user-driven.

If you are a developer, you can join us in testing and improving existing software, and developing new software that is Free, Accessible, and Safe.

If you are good at writing documentation, you will find yourself at home as part of the Documentation Group, with the goal of writing guides and documentation that is accessible to users of various technical skill levels.

Regardless of your abilities, if you use computers in any capacity, there will be ways for you to assist us in our mission.

Donations

Volunteer work is what makes FASSAG what it is, but to help those around us, we need donations.

Computers

While making the software itself safe and accessible is of course very important, if someone has no access to a computer system that they can use and trust, our efforts are not helpful to them.

However, many people have old computers they are not using. If we simply cleaned them up a bit, installed linux so they run better, and then distribute them to people in need, this alleviates much of the issue.

Locale

Currently we only have volunteers who can refurbish in the rochester and boston areas. If you can not meet with one of us locally, but can cover shipping costs, we can still accept your device! If you would like to help perform refurbishment and distribution in your area, please get in touch with us!

Financial

Financial donations can help us purchase computers if nothing else is available, purchase parts to repair the computers that we have, pay for contract work, shippings costs, and potentially fund future work if we recieve enough!

Future work

Of course if someone is unhoused, a computer is much harder to use, but until we have more financial resources, setting up computer libraries will be very difficult. We would also like to run local programs to help with things like repair or making their current systems more safe and accessible. If you are interested in helping with something like this, please get in touch with us!

Contact info

If you would like to get in touch to recieve a computer or for any other reason, we have an email: fassag.donations@gmail.com and a phone number: (TBD) to reach.

We want this to be as available as possible, especially to people who do do not have computers, feel free to reach out if you think there are ways we can improve our availability.

If all else fails, you are welcome to reach out on someone else's behalf.

Join Us

To get started with FASSAG, join the FASSAG Entrance Matrix room and introduce yourself.

What is Matrix?

Matrix is a free way to chat with people, including the FASSAG team. You can join Spaces, which are collections of Rooms that you can chat in.

Installing a Matrix Client

These are the clients we currently recommend. If you aren't a power user, your mileage may vary installing other clients!

• Desktop: Element Web/Desktop is currently what we recommend.

• Mobile: Element X is currently what we recommend.

Creating an Account

If you're new to Matrix, feel free to create an account on the main Matrix instance, Matrix.org. After installing a client, you will be asked if you want to create an account on Matrix.org.

Joining the Entrance

Once you have a client installed, click below:

💬 Join FASSAG Entrance