Tag: freesoftware

Apologies to anyone that finds this preachy or holier-than-thou. I don’t consider myself immune to this criticism: my mobile phone still runs non-free software. I realize that what I describe here is a process for everyone. I’m just trying to make sure nobody gets too comfortable with the status quo.

It’s been interesting to see non-hackers finding inspiration in the free/open source software movement. In particular, I’ve been watching this phenomena for a couple years in the the non-profit and NGO sector. Folks in these groups are often very philosophically aligned with the freedom movement behind free software and there are a number of organizations that are involved in promoting free software and the ideas behind it to NGOs and beyond.

What’s amazing to me is that in many situations, major advocates of free and open source software in these areas — people who are advocating the software because of the freedom and not only for the pragmatic benefits — don’t actually use free software on their desktops or in other places they could.

Sure, everyone uses Firefox. Sure, everyone uses Apache and GNU/Linux for their web servers. Sure, everyone uses Drupal, Mambo, Plone, or another free CMS. But one can’t help but notice that Firefox, Apache, and free CMSs are higher quality, more featureful, and easier to use than the proprietary alternatives.

People arguing for free software from a principled position need to remember that principled positions are sometimes inconvenient. Free software is no exception. It’s frequently different, sometimes incompatible and a bit more work. In some situations (dare I say it?), it’s not as good as the proprietary alternatives.

We all need to remember that living a principled life is not always the easiest path. If you take a principled position against GMO foods or in favor of organic produce, you’ll probably spend more and shop farther from your house. Your favorite fruit may not be in season year-round. If you only buy fair-trade clothing, your garment choices will be cut down in ways that will sometimes be inconvenient.

It’s nice when taking a principled position also means you get to do what is most convenient. But there’s little principle in taking a principled position only when it’s convenient.

Yes. There are problems — often major — with free software: usability, documentation and otherwise. There are also ways to address these problems. Few of them require that you be or become hacker but almost all of them involve using the software first. I don’t have to think hard to recall all of the times I’ve received contributions (e.g., documentation, suggestions, translations, patches, etc.) from people who don’t use my software.

If you don’t think that spreading free software is an ethical act, you can happily ignore me. If you agree that it’s the right thing, think hard about your principles and challenge yourself to take the next step — whatever that is.

The press, others, and even myself have made much of the Media Lab and One Laptop Per Child’s decision to embrace a platform that is fully free and open. There are two major reasons for working with the free world on this project. The first is the philosophical reasons that I’ve laid out recently. The second is the fact that a free platform will help us leverage the work of a large community to accomplish building, testing, and improving what we believe will ultimately develop into a new and more relevant type of software platform for the world’s children.

In terms of building community, our first goal must be harnessing the power of the existing free software world and interested parties therein. Later on (i.e., once the machines exist) we can focus on getting governments, non-profits, and ultimately some of the students using the machine, to contribute as well. While there’s clearly a bootstrapping phase, we unfortunately, we haven’t done much of either so far.

Up until now, Red Hat has been doing the legwork in the realm of software. So much so that at points it has been difficult even for some of us officially working on the project (e.g., myself) to make meaningful contributions. While we’ve had many people express interest in helping with the project from elsewhere in MIT and in non-MIT world, we’ve been at a loss for ways to plug folks in.

As part of a larger effort to address these issues in the next month or so, Walter Bender, myself, and David Cavallo are organizing a short workshop on getting involved in the OLPC/$100 laptop project for people at MIT. We will also be posting information from that workshop online for everyone. If you’re at MIT and are interested, please show up. If you are in the area but without an MIT or Harvard affiliation, contact me. If you’re out of the area and are interested in getting involved, just stay tuned.

The workshop is being offered as a three hours one-day-only IAP class. You can check out the IAP web page and then show up.

We will be done with plenty of time to rest up before the MIT mystery hunt begins. It looks like I’ll be hunting with Codex Dresden.

Quim Gil asked a number of good questions about the One Laptop Per Child initiative. I will not answer all of his questions now and am not sure answers exist yet for every question. With that said, I will try to answer his final question with the traditional disclaimer that the thoughts expressed here are my own and may or may not be shared by others within the project are not the official position of OLPC.

Quim asked, "what measures will be taken to avoid or [inhibit] the spread of a (unconscious or well-intentioned?) cultural neocolonialism?" I have been asked this question many times. It is an issue that concerns me personally. As such, I’ll give you my personal feelings on the subject.

Discussion of cultural colonialism, Westernization, Americanization or techno-imperialism are hardly limited to OLPC. Sometimes it comes in the form of reactions against what is seen as the homogenizing or Americanizing effect of US-based multinationals (e.g., McDonald’s or Nike) or against the culturally oriented US-based motion picture or recording industries. In terms of technology, the debate is often framed in terms of Appropriate Technology.

There is an argument that modern information technology — designed and developed in highly industrialized countries to address their particular set of cultural contexts and needs — may be inappropriate and potentially dangerous in the developing world. This is a fair critique. But while there may be a danger, insisting that the technology be kept out is unrealistic and may miss the larger evil.

These discussions can not responsibly ignore the fact that, depending on whose numbers you trust, there are between and 1 and 2 billion mobile phones in the world today and that number will reach something like 2.6 billion operational units in 2009. That’s nearly half the world population and it’s not hard to find out where most of those phones are going:

All the growth in subscribers is coming from emerging markets," says David Taylor, Motorola’s director of strategy and operations for high-growth markets. Researchers predict that of the 1 billion cell phones expected to be sold in 2010, half will be in developing economies. (link)

Information and communication technology is, in one form or another, on a fast track into the developing world. That may very well be a problem but it’s not the biggest problem in this field. The bigger problem is the nature of the technology that is being imported.

People in the, rich and developed countries may have cellphones, but they frequently also have computers: full-fledged, reprogrammable, hackable computers; computers that they can use to write software, design hardware, install new OSes on, and even — if they are really adventurous — use to reprogram their mobile phone.

People in the developing world will have information technology (in the form of cellphones at least) but do not have the ability — no matter how interested, talented, or intelligent they are — to change the way they work. This is the greater danger.

The most powerful and empowering quality of information technology in the context of personal computers is that as communication is being mediated, facilitated, and defined through software on computers fully within users’ control, each user has the ability to determine the terms on which they communicate. In a world where people are communicating, trading, voting, learning, working, and organizing through digital channels, massive power lies in the hands of those who have the tools (e.g., computers and development platforms) and access and permission (e.g., Free and Open source software) necessary to make the necessary changes.

In three years, there will be a billion people in the developing world who are using information technology on the terms and at the whim of the today’s global elite and they will not be able transcend their role and consumers and subservients in this context. Their ability to transcend their depressed role in larger economic contexts will be highly influenced by this fact. The developing world’s "computers" will not be able to create or change the software that define them. The code that runs these devices will be proprietary and will remain immutable even in the context of additional hardware.

Unless we do something about it.

As far I’m concerned, that something is two steps:

• We need to create and distribute — real computers that can be used as development platforms — at a price that can begin to compete with their alternatives (e.g., phones, thinclients, WebTVs, etc).
• We need to make sure that these machines are hackable — totally hackable — on every level. That means open hardware. That means Free and Open Source software. That means open specifications, protocols, and data formats.

That is my personal goal in OLPC and it is one that has seemed to have been echoed by others involved in the project.

Of course, I have hardly washed myself or my project of the stigma of cultural imperialism yet. That said, while making a completely malleable machine allows every user to, if they choose to, transcend their role as a consumer of technology and technologically-defined culture, one side effect of this process is that it also allows them to do so on their own terms. Because the machine is completely free and open, users are free to use the machine in ways that not only have the originators not considered, but that they could not imagine. With time, the machine — and its software in particular — can be rewritten, reshaped, and eventually replaced with something of, by, and for its users.

Of course, this will not happen overnight. As the first step, OLPC will attempt to create something we think provides a compelling and flexible platform with which the world can learn and build. With this in hand, governments and ministries of education that purchase the machine will get to shape (or replace?) the platform in line with their own ideas and curricula. As the students and communities to which the machines are deployed learn and build with and upon the machine, another transformation will occur. As those communities grow in relation to their technology, this change will be sustained.

The potential for this dynamic and empowering relationship is the reason I’m here.

After a unfortunate bout of downtime, I’m happy to announce that Sam Hartman has officially revived the Debian-Boston-Social mailing list and our community is back in business.

If you’re in Boston and would like to participate in key signings, meetings with local and traveling free software hackers (Debian and otherwise) and to stay keyed into a crowd of people in Boston working on and using Debian and its derivatives, this is your list.

You should feel free to attend events and to plan and announce your own in pubs and other points of interests.

With its strong academic predisposition and its important place in the history of free software, the Boston/Cambridge has no excuse being shown up by places like New York City when it comes to having a happening Debian scene.

You can sign up here.

Next month in Dublin is going to be the Darklight digital film festival. In preparation for the festival is a now traditional symposium that has a reputation for bringing together a collection of interesting people to, "identify, profile and respond to the current transformations in the distribution of cultural production enabled by the proliferation of digital and wireless networks."

I’m thrilled to have been asked to attend and give a speech there along with fellow Media Lab inhabitant Barry Vercoe (of course, he helped found the lab — I’ve only been there for a month). I’ll be talking about intellectual property and will try to describe some of the history of the current mess we’re in, offer a rough classification of the types of solutions that are being offered and then go into some depth on the Free/Open Source Software model. I’ll talk about the reasons Free Software has been successful and try to describe some of the benefits and limitations of applying this model to the production of other types of creative works.

You can check out the symposium schedule and register now for a free spot in the audience. Please keep in mind that registration is limited.

If you will not be able to attend but are in Dublin and would like to meet up (for keysigning, chatting, etc.), please get in contact and we’ll work something out.

I’ve never been to Ireland before am excited. The one (major) downside of course is that this talk will mean I will not be able to attend the most relevant parts of Ubuntu Below Zero conference and so am currently not planning to attend at all. I send my regards to the rest of the Ubuntu team. I’ll see you at the next one am looking forward to the tsunami of new specs that will define Dapper and am looking forward to participating in whatever way I can from remote.

Mika pointed out a striking similarity between the official business addresses of Apple and Canonical:

Canonical Ltd. One Circular Road Douglas, Isle of Man

Apple One Infinite Loop Cupertino, CA

A friend I trust tells me that Infinite Loop is not, in fact, infinite. I have every reason to believe that Circular Road is everything the name implies.

Honesty is very important to me.

I’ve been reading First Monday for several years now. It’s probably the only academic journal that I take the time to scan every single time a new issue is released. As you might imagine, I was felt honored to be asked by Sandeep Krishnamurthy to submit a set of reflections on Free and Open Source Software’s from a "where have we been, where are we going" perspective for a upcoming special issue of First Monday on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).

First Monday has published or republished some of the most important articles on FOSS — both academic and non-academic — over the last few years and this issues tries to highlight many of the best pieces.

The issue was released today and can find the whole issue here. You can jump direction to my reflections on free software past and future as well.

Overall, Krishnamurthy puts together a solid collection. My only critique is that I felt that at least one piece from someone on the Free Software side of the Open Source/Free Software divide would be essential to a complete collection. I found it conspicuously missing.

Thinking along these lines, I could not help but remember that Eben Moglen’s Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright was published in First Monday early on and I’m sad that it was no included. I understand that Moglen’s piece is more radical and less "academic" than others but I’m not convinced it would be any more out of place than the Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar which was included. While less visible, Moglen is at least on par with Raymond in terms of the impact and importance of this thought in the FOSS world.

Moglen’s piece was one of the two articles that first brought FM to my attention and, whether you agree with it or not, it is a controversial and important piece. The other article on FOSS that I an think of in relation to FM was George Dafermos’ Management and virtual decentralized networks. Looking at again, I’m not sure it’s aged very well (or perhaps I haven’t aged well in relation to it) but I was happy to see that it make it in.

Biella Coleman recently finished her dissertation in Anthropology after studying Free Software communities for most of a decade. It’s a hefty tome and I’ll admit that I have only read the chapter on Debian but I am definitely impressed. As many of my favorite arcade games would say, "CONGRATULATION!" Only one.

I think that a certain amount of "outside perspective" from people who are trained to observe, compare, and analyze social interactions can be an incredibly healthy and useful thing for a community. Since I’m interested in the social and political aspects of free software development, I have read more than my share of work from sociologists, anthropologists, and economists studying free software. I can say with whatever authority that gives me that Biella has one of the best understandings of Free Software of any "outsider" studying the field.

Of particular interest to me is her chapter on the cultivation of ethics within Debian. I think Debian folks should check it out if they are interested and have the time.

My only warnings to Debianistas are about the length and the language. This is a paper written to impress anthropologists. In particular, it’s written to impress a committee of anthropologists who got to decide whether Biella would get a doctorate. Basically, this means jargon, references, and a style of writing that is perhaps only totally transparent to other anthropologists. That said, Biella has put effort into making it "translucent" to the rest of us and has mostly succeeded but folks should still be warned. It’s definitely worth a read.

To Everyone

Many people already know this but I thought I would make a more "public" announcement so everyone knows.

In about two weeks, I’ll be leaving Canonical Ltd. to return to academia at the MIT Media Lab. I’ll be in Walter Bender’s Electronic Publishing research group working with Marvin Minskey and others.

I’ll be doing as-yet-undecided research at the lab and I’ve got a number of very attractive options to choose from or try to balance. One of these is Negroponte’s $100 Laptop Project which, for a number of reasons, seems like an incredible opportunity.

To the Ubuntu Community

Of course, by no means does leaving Canonical mean I will be leaving the Ubuntu community. On the contrary, I intend to continue my work with the community council, play a leadership and/or advisory role in the budding Ubuntu Foundation, and suspect I will even be able to raise my involvement in a couple other technical and non-technical areas of Ubuntu that my work for Canonical sometimes left little time for. I don’t think anyone, except maybe folks from the business side of Canonical, will be seeing much less of me and many of you will probably be seeing more. I will no longer be involved in the distribution of CDs so email info@shipit.ubuntu.com and not me if you have a question along these lines. :)

I think that in a number of ways, this is actually a very good thing for the Ubuntu community. Not everyone realizes this but both top governance committees in Ubuntu — the Ubuntu Community Council and the Technical Board — are made up of Mark Shuttleworth and people he employs. While our community is less than one year old and this is unavoidable in the process of bootstrapping a young community like Ubuntu, this fact has made me increasingly uncomfortable over the last year.

I think that through a departure from Canonical and a sustained role on the council, I can help introduce real community and institutionally independent involvement at the highest level of our project. I believe that I can help Ubuntu grow as project distinct from and in symbiosis with Canonical in a ways that I couldn’t — for symbolic reasons if nothing else — while my rent was being paid by Mark.

To Bostonians

Going to MIT means I’m also going to be returning from New York City to Boston, Massachusetts. Mika and I will be living in Harvard Square, Cambridge and already have a place. Since I seem to have no social life distinct from my free software life, I will probably be seeing some of you much more often. If you’re in the area and I don’t talk to you regularly yet, contact me and we’ll get together.

To Canonical

I’ve said this already but I think a good job is about working with and for good people and I can say without hesitation that Canonial is best job I’ve ever had. It’s been a complete pleasure and I won’t be surprised at all if I find myself back with Canonical again in a couple years.

To Boston Debianistas

It’s simple really: Get ready to show those New Yorkers that despite the fact that our subways are clean, look like toys and close at midnight, our bars close at two, our milkshakes are in no way actually milkshakes and our international airport is comparatively tiny, we can still have a way better Debian Social Scene.

Enrico Zini suggested that I don’t stir up stinking shit unless I want it to keep stinking. I find that he’s almost always right so I’ll try to keep this short as I ignore his advice.

A number of people didn’t see the humor in my pledge. I was, in fact, joking around to make a point. I thought the fact that it was phrased as a pledge would reveal the joke. If you want to do something strongly enough that you might create a pledge, just do it instead of risking action on the interest or apathy of others. Pledges — and especially pledges of this sort — are silly in this respect and I didn’t think people would take my pledge so seriously.

In terms of my point, Joey Hess was right. My point was bigger than Andrew and it wasn’t fair to pick on him to make a point. I apologize to Andrew and to anyone else offended.

Those concerned about killfiling may have missed the comment where I revealed that I don’t actually killfile. If we can achieve the maturity to not respond to messages when we read them as provocations (whether they were intended that way not), killfiles are unnecessary. I think we should all grow up a little bit. That was the point and I apologize if it didn’t get across.

But I realize that talk is cheap. So to end this saga on the absurd note it was supposed to start on I’ve gone ahead and started another pledge…

"I will never start another pledgebank.com pledge to killfile anyone but only if 50 others will agree not to create such pledges as well."

—Benjamin Mako Hill

You can sign up for the pledge here.

I will killfile Andrew Suffield so I do not recieve Debian list email from him but only if 100 other people on Debian lists will too.

-— Benjamin Mako Hill

I have created a pledge over at PledgeBank with the title above and am looking for your support. Here’s the explanatory text:

If you read the Debian private email list, you understand my immediate motivation for starting this pledge. If you do not but interact with the Debian community in other ways, there’s a good chance you can come up with many other examples of why agreeing to pledge might be a good idea.

I think the Debian project would be a better place if people stopped responding to comments that, in effect and often in intent, are little more than provocations, put-downs, and trolls. Andrew Suffield’s emails to Debian lists fall in this category all to often.

However, since responses that quote unecessarily provocative messages are visible by folks who have ignored the sender, blocking email from a person (also known as killfiling) only works if done en-mass.

While Andrew is by no means the only person whose comments have a disruptive effect on Debian lists, he is a one example of a person whose negative effect outweighs his positive contributions in the minds of many. While those fulfilling this pledge would miss Andrew’s positive contributions on the lists, I believe it would be worth it.

The point of course, is not to pick on Andrew Suffield. It’s just that his behavior makes him a good example.

The point is to raise a little awareness about (and get a few names behind) the feeling that messages that are not intending to troll can have the identical effects — and that perhaps the best policy is to treat them accordingly. If the only outcome is that people understand this, it will have been a success.

You can sign up for the pledge at: http://www.pledgebank.com/killfileandrew