Talks at CommunityOne

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

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

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

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.

My Spring

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Software Freedom Day Boston

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

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.