Software Freedom Day Boston 2011 Posted Fri, 16 Sep 2011

This year, Software Freedom Day in Boston is being organized by Asheesh and Deb and OpenHatch which means a focus on increasing involvement in free software communities. If you are all interested in getting involved in the free software community in any way and at any level -- or interested in hearing about how that might happen someday -- this is a great event to attend.

For my part, I'll be giving a short talk on getting involved in Debian.

The event will be held on Saturday, September 17 at Cambridge College -- between Harvard and Central squares -- with an after party at Tommy Doyle's in Harvard.

Another Summer European Tour Posted Wed, 29 Jun 2011

I've been in Europe for the last couple weeks but pretty occupied with things like attending my brother wedding and a series of outdoor excursions in Spain.

Today Mika and I arrived in Berlin where I am going to attending and giving a talk at the Open Knowledge Conference on When Free Software Isn't Better. I'll also participate in a session on Wikipedia research facilitated by Mayo Fuster Morrell.

On July 2nd, I'll be taking an overnight train to Vienna where I'll be attending the Open and User Innovation Workshop -- an academic conference where I'll presenting some of my research. From there I'll be hitching a ride to Munich with Marcell Mars on July 6th and, after that, a flight back to Boston with a weekend long layover in Reykjavik.

Details on the trip are on page on my wiki and I encourage anyone to contact me if you're in Berlin, Vienna, Munich, or Reykjavik and want to meet up for a drink or a chat.

Ask Me Anything in an Igloo Posted Sat, 19 Feb 2011
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When Reddit sold to Condé Nast and the founders all moved to California, their old place in Davis Square was empty for a few months and they let Mika I move in and take it over. It's an awesome place and we're still there along with some Web 2.0 graffiti they left on the roof.

And so it is with pleasure that I've agreed to be interviewed by redditor Danny Piccirillo in a giant igloo he helped build -- if the unseasonably warm weather streak of weather doesn't manage to melt it before next week.

Questions are being gathered at Reddit so feel free to go there and ask me any question you'd like to see me answer in an igloo.

Antifeatures at the Free Technology Academy Posted Fri, 04 Feb 2011

In addition to lecturing for two courses at MIT this term, I recently had the pleasure of giving a lecture on antifeatures at the Free Technology Academy -- a program which offers Masters courses over the Internet. Quite a few of the FTA courses are about free software, free knowledge, and related topics!

It was my first time giving a lecture to microphone and an empty room. Although I found it a little tricky to adapt to the lack of any audience, the FTA folks put together a great video. I'm psyched that the course material will be available as open education resources for anyone who might want to incorporate it into another course.

If you've seen my LCA keynote about antifeatures (which is also available online), there's not going to be a whole new in the lecture. If didn't see it, you might want to check out the lecture. I'll be in the online discussion group around the Lecture for the next couple weeks but you need to sign up to participate.

My August Posted Wed, 04 Aug 2010

I've got a pretty packed August.

I just wrapped the Open and User Innovation Conference at MIT -- the academic conference on user and open innovation connected to my research. I organized the program and was MC for the 120+(!) talks and research updates on the program so it's a huge relief to see it come off successfully.

On Thursday, August 5th (at 14:30 UTC) I'll be giving a talk on antifeatures at DebConf (the Annual Debian conference). It was accidentally listed as "Revealing Errors" until a few minutes ago -- sorry about that! It will be streamed live (details on the DC site) for those outside of New York City who might want to follow it.

As soon as DebConf is done on August 8th, I'm going to head to Korčula in Croatia to relax, read, and hopefully get a bit of research done, before I head off to Outlaws and Inlaws in Split on the 19th, a sort of piracy and (vs?) free software summit put on by mi2 connected to the recurring Nothing Will Happen where, from what I hear, quite a lot does.

I'm going to have to leave Nothing Will Happen a little early to head to FrOSCon on the 21st where I'll be doing an antifeatures keynote again on the 22nd. I tend not to like to do the same talk too many times, or for more than a year, so this might be one of the last times I present on antifeatures in this form.

After that, I'm going to head to Italy where I'll be between the 23rd and the 3rd of September. I'll fly and in and out of Rome and plan to spend some time in Rome, Tuscany, and Florence, but don't have a lot of set plans and might travel to Bologna or elsewhere.

My schedule is pretty open. As always, I'm interested in meeting up for coffee or a drink with like-minded hackers, Wikipedians, researchers, activists, etc. If folks are interested in organizing talks or presentations, that sounds fun too. I'm keeping a brief description of my schedule updated alongside a bunch of ways to get in touch with me on my contact page. Don't hesitate to drop me a line!

Wikimedia Scholarship 2009-2010 Posted Sun, 27 Jun 2010

Folks at last year's Wikimania may remember the presentation I gave there. It was essentially a literature review of Wikipedia and Wikimedia scholarship from the previous year. The idea was to give a bird's-eye-view as well a series of highlights -- all aimed at Wikimedians.

Apparently somebody found it useful because I've been asked to do it again! I'm going to be paired up in a longer session with Felipe Ortega -- whose excellent dissertation I summarized as part of my talk last year -- and Mayo Fuster Morell has also agreed to help out. Felipe is program chair for WikiSym this year and will be focusing on providing folks with a summary of the papers published at that conference. It will be held immediately before Wikimania in Gdansk. For my part, I'm going to be focusing more broadly and talking about papers published, well, anywhere else.

And this is where you come in!

With search engines and all, I've got a pretty good idea of breadth of the work that's out there. I also "just know" stuff from my own areas of interest and study. That said, I don't have as strong of an idea of what's good and what's relevant beyond what I can grok from citation counts. And after one year (or less!), that's clearly not very much information.

As a result, I'm looking for suggestions or recommendations from anybody on interesting, useful, important, or otherwise noteworthy scholarly papers on or about Wikipedia or other Wikimedia projects published in the last year. Feel free to leave a comment, email mako@atdot.cc, or edit this page.

Antifeatures Talk Posted Tue, 23 Mar 2010

The recordings for Linux Conf Australia 2010, held this year in Wellington, are finally online. The recordings include a video of my keynote on Antifeatures.

I was deeply honored to be invited to give a keynote at LCA and, as a result, felt more pressure than usual to put together something that was novel, relevant and entertaining and that spoke to core issues and problems facing free software.

Although it's always hard for me to watch myself speaking, I've made it through the video and am reasonably happy with the result. Although perhaps it's a minor distinction, I think this lecture is probably the best talk I've given given to date! I hope to give the talk again so, as always, I welcome comments and feedback.

If you'd like to watch it, the talk is available in a number of free and non-free formats:

Upcoming Travel Posted Sun, 13 Dec 2009

As is becoming my custom, I'm planning to spend much of December and January on the road. This time I'll be in Seattle, Japan and Wellington, New Zealand. Here's the rough schedule:

  • December 18-28: Seattle
  • December 28-January 2: Tokyo
  • January 2-14: Traveling in Japan
  • January 15-17: Boston to compete in the MIT Mystery Hunt
  • January 19-24: Wellington, New Zealand to give a talk at LCA

Mika will also be around for everything but the NZ leg and SJ seems likely to make an appearance in Japan during the first week of January.

Feel free to get in contact if you'd like to meet up in any of the places above for a coffee or beer. I'm also open to hanging out with giving talks at LUGs, GLUGs, Wikipedia groups, free culture groups, colleges or Universities along the way. Most of my time in Japan is still basically unstructured so I'm quite open to suggestions during the first couple weeks of January.

Antifeatures Posted Wed, 18 Nov 2009

In preparation for LCA, I'm going to be giving my new Antifeatures talk a few times to smaller local audiences.

The first is going to be today in Boston (apologies for the late notice!) at Northeastern University at 11:45 and it's being hosted by the ACM chapter there.

The second one will be at my alma mater Hampshire College in Amherst this Friday. A draft flier (ignore the unpluralized "antifeatue") is below.

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Send Me Your Antifeatures, Win a Flessenlikker Posted Wed, 24 Jun 2009

At OSCON this year, I'm going to be giving a talk about "antifeatures." Antifeatures are a way to describe a particular practice made possible by locked down technologies. Antifeatures, as I describe them, are functionality (i.e., "features) that a technology developer will charge users not to include. You can read my short article on the topic published in the FSF bulletin in 2007 for a series of examples and a more in-depth description.

One thing I want to do is put together as large a collection of these antifeatures as possible before the talk. Please read the article if you haven't already and send me examples of other antifeatures either as a comment or in email to mako@atdot.cc. Credit and my deep gratitude will be given to anybody who sends me something. A prize in the form of a real Dutch flessenlikker will given to the best example I get.

Berlin Posted Sun, 07 Jun 2009

After a week at the International Open and User Innovation Workshop 2009 in Hamburg, I'm in Berlin again this week. I've got nothing concrete planned other than spending most of my days hacking on a few projects. Let me know if you're around and would like to meet up.

I'll post more about my travel and talks schedule this summer as things firm up in the next couple weeks.

LibrePlanet 2009 Posted Fri, 20 Feb 2009

If you're interested in free software --- and free network services in particular --- and should try to join me in Boston for the weekend of March 21st and 22nd.

The FSF is organizing its annual members meeting again. This year the model is very different. For a start, the audience isn't limited to FSF members and the conference is not just about FSF projects and work.

Instead, the meeting has been rebranded LibrePlanet and has been broken up into a two-day event that is going to talk about and then try to tackle some of the biggest problems facing the world of free and open source software. Saturday March 21st will feature a series of talks about major issues facing free software. Sunday March 22nd will be focused on an unconference attempt to tackle and explore several of the key themes or tracks: network services, high priority projects, and the nascent LibrePlanet activism network.

I'll be focused on the track around free network services which I'm helping organize in part through Autonomo.us. For more information on that angle, please take a look at my blog post over at Autonomo.us. We're going to have a great group of people at the track and I'm excited by the idea that that we'll be able to make some real progress on the issues.

I encourage anyone who thinks they might be able to make it to consider doing so. There are details including travel, location, hotel information and much more on the event web page and wiki (login is required to RSVP). Please spread the word!

Change of Plans Posted Tue, 06 Jan 2009

One change and one addition to my current European tour.

First, it looks like we'll be skipping Amsterdam this time and heading straight to London from Zagreb on the evening of January 10th. We'll still plan to arrive in Cambridge before the 13th.

Second, I'll be giving a redux of my Revealing Errors talk at Mama in Zagreb on January 10th at 14:00 as part of the normal skill sharing meeting. It's the longer version of my OSCON keynote with many more examples. Folks who have seen earlier versions of the talk seem to think it's a lot of fun.

If you are in or near Zagreb, you should come!

Recent and Upcoming Talks Posted Sat, 25 Oct 2008

I've been a bit remiss about keeping this space up to date with my upcoming talks over the last month or so. Here's me playing catchup.

On Monday October 20th, I gave a talk on Selectricity for the IEEE Boston Section's Society on Social Implications of Technology. It covered more or less the same ground I coverd in my OSCON talk on the same subject. Then next day, Tuesday October 21st, I gave a short talk on Revealing Errors as part of the MIT-Harvard-Yale Cyberscholars meeting.

There was nothing new or ground-breaking in either but it was good to spread the word on the projects -- work continues on both.

I also have one more coming up: another Revealing Errors talk in Amherst, Massachusetts at my alma mater on October 31st (Halloween). If you are in Western Massachusetts and would like to meet up or attend the talk, let me know.

Punditry Posted Fri, 24 Oct 2008

On the morning after the final US presidential debate that happened a week ago, I was invited onto the excellent new WNYC morning show The Takeaway -- syndicated by Public Radio International. One of the hosts, John Hockenberry, was in Boston to tape that edition of the show.

I was on to talk about Selectricity and some of other ways that we might use election technologies. I was on and off (mostly off) air for the whole second hour (7:00-8:00 AM) of taping and had a bit of a segment just into the second half of the hour. You can check out the website or download the podcast.

Although it's definitely not as fun to listen to as my a last gig on public radio, it's certainly more consequential. The role of the techno-pundit was also -- unfortunately? --- easier for me to fill.

Software Freedom Day Boston Posted Sat, 20 Sep 2008

It's late notice but Boston area folks should drop by the local Software Freedom Day events today. It goes from 10:00-16:00 and is located in a great space in Chinatown. More information in on the wiki.

I'm teaming up with John Sullivan of the FSF to talk about free software on in your pocket on unexecpted platforms. We'll show off CHDK (for cameras), the FreeRunner (a phone), and probably also talk about RockBox, iPodLinux, and more. It should be laid back and fun!

The whole point of SFD (and this SFD event in particular) is create a space that's appropriate to folks that don't already know about free and open source software and that aren't necessary technical. If you are a hacker or an advocate, show up and meet some like minded folks and introduce new people to the ideas that inspire you. If you are just curious about this stuff this event is designed for you.

If you're not in Boston, check the SFD webpage. There are hundreds of events around the world and may even be one near you!

Revealing Errors OSCON Keynote Posted Fri, 08 Aug 2008

When I gave a Revealing Errors talk at Lug Radio Live USA, I had the misfortune of being up against Robert Love's talk on Android which many people at the conference wanted to see -- myself included! One person who showed up to my talk anyway was Allison Randall. She was apparently entertained enough to invite me to give a short version of the talk as one of the keynote presentations at OSCON 2008!

In the talk, I covered the ideas behind my Revealing Errors project and quickly walked through a few examples that showcase what I'm trying to do. I'm happy with the result: a couple thousand people showed up for the talk despite the fact that it was at 8:45 AM after the biggest "party night" of the conference!

For those that missed it for whatever reason, you can watch a video recording that O'Reilly made and that I've embedded below.

A larger version of the Flash video as well as a QuickTime version is over on blip.tv and I've created an OGG Theora version for all my freedom loving readers.

OSCON and More Posted Sun, 20 Jul 2008

I'm in Portland, Oregon for the week where I'll be at OSCON. I'll be giving two talks on the final day of the conference (July 25): the first will be a 15 minute keynote on Revealing Errors at 8:45 in the Portland Ballroom; the second is a full-length normal talk on Selectricity at 11:35AM in Portland 255. It will be my first long-form talk about Selectricity and I'm looking forward to it.

Because myself, a few Free Software Foundation staff members including Campaign Manager Joshua Gay, and quite a few FSF associate members will be in town, we're going to hold a small FSF Associate Members event in Portland (the first outside Boston!). It's going to be in the form of a pizza party with a few small talks from FSF folk including myself. Here are the details:

FSF Associate Members (& friends!) Event
July 22nd 6:30-9:00PM
Old Town Pizza
226 NW Davis St
Portland, OR 97209

It's free and open to all but is designed to provide a forum for members and friends. If you are an FSF member, please consider coming. If you're not a member yet, please don't let it keep you away; staff will be able to sign up new members there. RSVPs to Deborah Nicholson aren't necessary to attend but would be welcome.

I'll be heading to Seattle right after the conference for a few days. If you would like to meet up in Seattle or Portland this week, please don't hesitate to get in contact.

Revealing Errors @ BLU Posted Wed, 18 Jun 2008

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I'm giving a talk about my Revealing Errors project tonight at the Boston Linux Unix meeting. It will be at MIT in E51-351. More information is on the BLU website.

Revealings Errors is a very different kind of project from what I've done. Please show up if you can. I'd love support, feedback, suggestions, and the like.

Stumping for Revealing Errors Posted Fri, 06 Jun 2008

Over the past couple months, I gave a couple talks on Revealing Errors -- my project to try and use errors to teach non-technical people about technology, the effects it has on our lives, and the ways in which we (as users) might want to control it.

The first version was at LUG Radio Live USA and went off reasonably well. A couple weeks later, I gave a version of the talk again at PenguiCon which went great. Unfortunately, neither recording seems to have worked out.

I'll be giving talks on the subject at least twice more this summer. The first will be on June 18th at Boston Linux Unix at 19:00 at MIT in E51-315. It will be my first talk to BLU in something like three years. I'm also currently scheduled to give an abbreviated version of the talk as a keynote at OSCON under the title Advocating Software Freedom by Revealing Errors.

In addition to all that, I'm having a whole lot of fun updating the Revealing Errors blog (although not as often as I'd like) and am currently in discussions about publishing a longer version of the Revealing Errors article as a book chapter at some point in the next year.

Thanks to everybody who has been supportive of the project and read the blog, has told their friends, and who has told me about telling technological errors they've seen around. Please keep it up!

Talks at CommunityOne Posted Thu, 24 Apr 2008

In the last leg of what has been marathon traveling over the last two months, I'm going to be heading back to San Francisco to give two talks at CommunityOne.

CommunityOne is a new one-day conference that Sun is putting on -- along side it's massive JavaOne conference -- that focuses on free software, open source, and non-Sun projects.

I'm going to be there talking about free software and free culture. I will be giving updated versions of the two talks that I have at the FSF members meetings over first two years. In the first talk, I'll be making the case for a strong free culture movement and in the second I'll be talking about liberating network services.

If you will be at the conference, or just in the Bay area, and would like to meet up, I'll be in the area for most of a week and would love to arrange something. Just get in contact.

Penguicon 6 Posted Sat, 19 Apr 2008

I've been on the road quite a bit lately. During my manic travel, I have been rather lax about blogging many of my recent talks.

After a talk at CHI in Florence on the 7th and a talk at LUG Radio Live USA last Sunday, I'm in Troy, Michigan for Penguicon. It's an incredible combination of a science fiction and a free software/open source conference and it's a huge amount of fun.

This morning I gave my Laptop Liberation talk and tonight I'll be helping judge the Open Source-ry Masquerade costume contest -- the very contest were Tron Guy premiered his now famous costume!

Tomorrow I'll be giving my Revealing Errors talk which I premiered last Sunday at the LUG Radio event and which I'm really excited about. If you're around and at the event please find me and introduce yourself! If you're in the area, I may have some free time tomorrow night. Don't hesitate to get in contact.

Geek Shall Inherit the Earth Talk Posted Tue, 01 Apr 2008

I wrote an essay several years ago called The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth: My Story of Unlearning. It's buried on my website but still manages to attract a consistent stream of readers.

It's essentially the story of how I became a geek, about school, ADD, and free software. It is by far the most personal thing I've ever published. That said, several people have told me that it's influenced them deeply -- changed their views, politics and attitudes in important ways.

In December, my friend Marcell asked me to give a version of the talk as part of his G33koskop series. I was hesitant to give such a personal talk but I did it anyway. I've finally got around to cleaning up the recording and have posted it online. You can download and listen to the talk here in Ogg Vorbis or here in MP3).

Talk in Amherst Posted Wed, 12 Mar 2008

I'm in Amherst, Massachusetts from now until Friday visiting my alma mater. I'll be giving a redux of my "Laptop Liberation" talk today (March 12) at 12:15 in Adele Simmons Hall for anyone that is around and wants to come. The talk is about free software and OLPC.

I'll be around and speaking to several classes at Hampshire College this week. If you're around Amherst and want to meet up, don't hesitate to get in touch.

Zones of Emergency Posted Mon, 03 Mar 2008

It's very short notice but I'm giving a talk tonight (2008-03-03) at the Joan Jonas Performance Hall at the MIT Visual Arts Program. It's rather last minute.

I'll be talking along with Mark Tribe as part of a series called Zones of Emergency. I'll be speaking a bit about free and open source software and why it's particularly important in the context of emergencies. Think Sahana. There's more information about the talk online here.

My Spring Posted Mon, 25 Feb 2008

I'm going to be traveling and giving talks quite a bit this spring. Here's what my schedule looks like now. I don't think much will be added to it:

I'll be giving at least one talk at the FSF Members Meeting, the Renaissance Panel, Lugradio Live, Penguicon, and Community One.

Matt's wedding is private. To join the FSF members meeting you must become an FSF Associate Member if you are not already. All of the other conferences require some sort of registration. Penguicon, Lugradio Live, and ROFLCon are each cheap and each promises to be a lot of fun. The talk at Hampshire should be free and open to the public.

I'll be posting more about each of these as things get closer including details about what is that I'll be talking about.

If you'd like me to talk to another group or at another event while I'm town for any of the events above, now would be a good time to ask. If you just want to meet up for a beverage of your choice, that's good too. In either case, get in contact.

Laptop Liberation in Nara Posted Fri, 04 Jan 2008

I'm going to be giving a reprise of the Laptop Liberation talk I gave at Cornell University in November at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology in the Kansai region of Japan on January 7th. If you around, please feel free to show up. If you are in Osaka, Kyoto or Nara and would like to have lunch or dinner, please email me and we can try to arrange something.

Details on the talk is online here in English and Japanese (thanks Mika!) although the talk itself will be in English.

Computing in the Cloud Posted Sat, 22 Dec 2007

On January 15th, I'm going to be giving a talk on a panel at the Computing in the Cloud conference held by Ed Felten's Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. The conference description says:

“Computing in the cloud” is one name for services that run in a Web browser and store information in a provider’s data center — ranging from adaptations of familiar tools such as email and personal finance to new offerings such as virtual worlds and social networks. This workshop will bring together experts from computer science, law, politics and industry to explore the social and policy implications of this trend.

I'm going to talk about the AGPL 3.0, why it's important that we put effort into figuring out what freedom for different technologies means, and what the components of freedom for web services might be.

Registration is free and bags you a name-tag and lunch.

Worth noting perhaps, the conference is sponsored by Microsoft.

My Balkan Tour Posted Mon, 19 Nov 2007

I recently mentioned that I would visiting some friends at mi2 in Zagreb and would be traveling around the Balkans a bit to give some talks and workshops. Here's what the current plan includes:

  • Novi Sad (November 20, at 20:00): I'll be participating in a discussion of hacker culture at CK13.
  • Novi Sad (November 21-22 16:00-21:00): There will be a System.hack() exhibition which I helped prepare some of the text for and which I'll be on-hand for. It will include a narrated history of hacking through six objects. The exhibition will be held in an room of the Mediteraneo Hotel in Novi Sad.
  • Belgrade (November 23 20:00): Another discussion on hacker culture, this time at Rex.
  • Belgrade (November 23-24 17:00-20:00): System.hack() will be exhibited again in a room of the Kasina Hotel.
  • Ljubljana (November 26, Time TBD): I'll be giving a talk on free software project management at Kiberpipa/Cyberpipe
  • Zagreb (December 3): I'll giving a talk in the giving a talk in the g33koscope lecture series. The topic and time are still undecided.

If you're in Novi Sad, Belgrade, Ljubljana, or Zagreb and would like to meet up, please consider coming to the events and exhibitions. If you can, and especially if you can not but would like to meet up anyway, feel free to drop me an email and let's try to organize a meeting.

Thanks go to Tomislav Medak and Marcell Mars who organized System.hack(), this whole tour, and who helped do the work to bring me over. I'm looking forward to the next couple weeks.

Debian Packaging Tutorial Posted Mon, 12 Nov 2007

Yesterday, when I posted the list of talks that I'll be giving this week, I forgot to mention that I will be giving a Cluedump at MIT tonight organized by SIPB. It will be in the form of a simple hands-on workshop to teach folks how make Debian or Ubuntu packages. The session is not aimed at teaching folks to make policy compliant packages or how to pass Debian's NM process but rather to be more of an, "Everything a Sysadmin Needs to Know about Debian and Ubuntu Packages," style introduction.

The talk is tonight, November 12, 2007, at 20:30 at MIT in room 56-114. Feel free to read the longer description and to show up if you're interested.

Talks in Brooklyn and Ithaca Posted Sun, 11 Nov 2007

I'll be in New York State for the second half of this coming week. On Thursday, I'll be in New York City giving a talk as part of a interdisciplinary colloquium discussing free software and structured around Decoding Liberation, the recent book by Brooklyn College professors Samir Chopra and Scott Dexter. The talk will be Thursday, November 15, 2007 between 10:50 and 13:30 in the Glenwood Lounge in the Brooklyn College student center. See this flier for details.

I'll be heading straight to Ithaca where I'll give a talk the next day at Cornell for the Code Review student group. My talk will try to introduce and discuss free software issues in the context of the OLPC project. The talk will be on Friday November 16th at 17:00 in Rockefeller 115. There's some more details on the Code Review website.

Folks should feel free to attend either event.

I'll be leaving soon after on a bit of a Balkan tour being organized by some of my friends from mi2 and will be spending a couple weeks in or based out of Zagreb. The details are still being ironed out but I'll be sure to post them here once I know dates, places, and times.

Ubuntu (w/ Special Guests) in Boston Posted Fri, 12 Oct 2007

There are quite a few important events related to Ubuntu -- and to free software communities more generally -- in the Boston area in the next few weeks. I plan to participate in many of them.

First, this coming Saturday, October 13, there will be an Ubuntu install party hosted at MIT and organized by the Ubuntu Massachusetts local community team. It promises to be a lot of fun and a great opportunity to have a gaggle of geeks install a free OS on your computer for you. If you've been thinking about installing free software but been hesitant (my guess is that this is not the majority of my readers), this is the event for you. I'll probably be doing RockBox installs as well so backup your music and bring an iPod if you're unfortunate enough to have funded Apple through the purchase of one.

Next week on October 18, Ubuntu Massachusetts will be hosting a party at the Globe Bar and Cafe to celebrate the (scheduled) release of the Gutsy Gibbon. I am not thrilled about everything in this release -- like Compiz by default -- but I am happy about the progress of the distribution both technically and in reaching out to an ever-wider and ever-larger group of users.

On the week of October 29-November 2, Canonical is hosting the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Cambridge. I'll definitely drop by for a least a day or two to make some strategic interjections and to participate in a few specifications that I care about. The summit is just down the street from my office at the Hotel at MIT so I have little excuse to not show up. I'll also being hanging out with friends from Ubuntu during the week.

Finally, as part of the Ubuntu conference, Canonical is sponsoring FOSSCamp. It promises to be a Foocamp/Barcamp style "un-conference" with a focus on free software and open source. I'll be there and, if there's demand, will run sessions on Selectricity and a quick Making Debian/Ubuntu Packages for Sysadmins talk -- basically a more polished version of what I did at the Ubucon in New York.

All events are open to the public although people who are not Ubuntu developers may be a little bored at the developer summit. I look forward to seeing both old and new faces around the project in the next month.

Open Minds Posted Tue, 09 Oct 2007

I'm going to be giving the opening keynote presentation at the K-12 Open Minds conference tomorrow. I was supposed to be talking on Thursday but will be filling in for David Thornburg who will be a day late. Apparently, he's been described as one of the top 21 speakers in the United States. Yikes!

I'll be talking about the free software movement and hacker culture. I've heard that the whole thing will be streamed.

Software Freedom Day Boston Posted Wed, 12 Sep 2007

This Saturday, September 15, is Software Freedom Day 2007. With more than 300 teams registered, there's a good chance that there's something going on near you.

I'll be helping at the Software Freedom Day event in downtown Boston where I'll be giving a talk on a still undetermined topic. I'll also be helping out with GNU/Linux and RockBox installs and letting folks play with my XO and OpenMoko.

If you are into free software, open source, or GNU/Linux, please show up to your local SFD event. Go ahead and bring your friends who are not yet familiar with free software -- this event is primarily for them.

In Boston, there will be refreshments, talks, demonstrations, and installs. Bring your laptop, desktop, iPod, or other DAP -- or just bring yourself and a friend.

Stumping for Free Culture Posted Thu, 09 Aug 2007

I've let my talks page fall badly out of date in the last year. As a first stab toward updating it, I've uploaded all of the notes for all of talks I've given calling for a free culture movement built around a standard of freedom and for adoption of the Definition of Free Cultural Works.

There are notes posted for talks at the following conferences and meetings:

The talks and notes are not the same, but they are often very similar and they share a lot of text.

The only recording I have is the one from the FSF Members meeting which I posted here before. It's still available online here:

Perhaps a couple other recordings will surface.

The good news is that I think that those of us involved with the definition have begun to make real progress in getting the message out and I think that, in several real ways, we've changed the nature of the conversation around free culture.

I hope so, because I think that, looking at the list above, it's probably time to move on and to think about helping the definition and the movement in new innovative ways and with new compelling arguments.

Wikimania 2007 Posted Thu, 02 Aug 2007

I'm in Taipei this week whole week for Wikimania 2007. I'm here for two days for a retreat of the Wikimedia Foundation board of directors and advisory board. I'm also going to be giving two and a half talks in the conference itself, attending a Debian birthday party, and perhaps giving a talk on Ubuntu at ITRI.

Here are the overviews of my talks at Wikimania:

  • Freedom's Standard Advanced (2007/08/03 10:30): Mostly a reprise of a couple talks I've given recently that make the case for a definition of freedom and for the Free Cultural Works Definition in particular.
  • Supporting Collaboration in Branched Articles (2007/08/05 13:15): I'll be unveiling my thesis work: a wiki that allows for branching and merging. It is built on distributed revision control concepts and tools (i.e., Bazaar) and includes a text-specific merge/conflict resolution system designed for writers. The tool has important potential for offline wiki work, stable versions, and collaboration among forked articles within and between wikis. Think ikiwiki but with distributed revision control and all the branching and merging that goes along with it. I'll be posting lots more information and source here in the coming month.
  • Election Committee (2007/08/04 14:30): I'll be joining the rest of the Wikimedia Election Committee and talking a bit about the last board elections and about how we might handle things like election methods in the next election.

Details on Debian's birthday party are online too which will have talks, food, beer, and more.

As always, get in contact if you want to meet up or just find me at the conference.

European Tour Posted Fri, 15 Jun 2007

I'm off on a short European tour for the next weeks -- in all likelihood my only trip to Europe this summer. I'll be visiting three conferences where I have planned talks. These include:

Between 23-26 June, I'll be traveling through the UK from Edinburgh. I have tentative stops planned for a variety of places along the way including Manchester, Cambridge, and London. I suppose there will be pub nights or something similar in each place. Get in contact if you want to meet up along the way.

National Free Culture Conference Posted Sun, 20 May 2007

Harvard Free Culture is helping to organize this years' National Free Culture Conference -- the meeting for North American Free Culture student groups. The whole shindig is planned for May 26, 2007 at Harvard University here in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The schedule is solidifying and I will presenting and arguing for adoption or support of the Free Cultural Works Definition within the FC student movement and probably also be talking about community building and advocacy in some free software groups I've worked with.

Housing is available and the event is open to the public. If you’d like to attend, speak, or help out with the conference, please email freeculture@hcs.harvard.edu or check out the Facebook event.

If you're on the fence about attending, you can read this glowing endorsement of the conference by high protectionist James DeLong at IP Central.

Free Culture Talk Recording Posted Fri, 18 May 2007

As I mentioned previously, I was graciously given the opportunity to speak the crowd at the Free Software Foundation's Members Meeting in March about some of my work and activism around Free Culture. In front of what was probably the friendliest audience possible, I compared the free software and free culture movements and explained why I think that free culture movement may be off track -- and, of course, what we as a community might be able to do about it.

If you listen to it, please try to forgive my faults as a speaker. The message I tried to convey is what I think is one the most important tactical issues facing free culture. If this talk dwells a little too long on free software and the lessons we might take from that world, please consider my audience.

You can listen to the talk here:

Reflections on the War on Share Posted Fri, 27 Apr 2007

I'm giving a talk today as part of Media in Transition 5 (MiT5) conference organized by the MIT Comparative Media Studies program. The topic this year year is right up my alley: "creativity, ownership, and collaboration in the digital age.

Everyone else is talking about free culture issues so I'm branching out a bit and delivering a paper I wrote with Harvard Law School and Harvard Free Culture's Elizabeth Stark on "the politics of piracy" with a focus on political action around P2P filesharing. We'll have a paper in the proceedings which I'll post with our talk notes and slides.

You can find information on our talk on how to attend on the conference website.