Open Tools

Just so you know, @danmilward, the whole "ram freedom" thing is a bit of a red flag to a bull - language like that could end up creating a pretty ugly "open" situation. The question you have to ask is this: freedom from whose perspective. The "permissive" open source licences that I gather are your preference (like the MIT licence) provide freedom for developers (and, practically speaking, specific company interests in exploiting the software by removing it from users or restricting their use). More "open" (based on my definition of the word) strong licences, which Stallman calls "copyleft" do the reverse of copyright. They protect the freedom of society: software users, to avoid exploitation by business interests. To me the difference between "Free and Open Source" and just plain "Open Source" is the difference between societal benefit and the principle of openness (i.e. enriching "the commons") vs. expedient openness preserving the ability for private interests to exploit software at the expense of the commons.

Also, @danmilward, I've spent a bit of time with Stallman as well, and I recognise that his "hard coreness" is due to his rather unique personality (definitely prickly in many cases) allowing him to be completely uncompromising and focused on "walking the talk". His resolve has effectively "planted the flag" of user freedom so far out in left field, that he makes all the rest of us look moderate by comparison. For that we all owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude.

As I see it, most of the people espousing permissive open source licences in preference to stronger copyleft licences (like the GPL) are a) "new generation" developers who didn't live through the heated battles (FUD campaigns, "Linux is a cancer", attempts to legislate against FOSS with the DCMA in the US, forcing proprietary standards through ISO, software patent accusations, etc.) with proprietary vendors that some of us did. We know how bad things were, and could rapidly become again. We also know that companies (and especially listed corporations) are inherently untrustworthy, and that society has to be protected against them.

Thus many of us "old school" FOSS adherents shake our heads in despair at the trusting expedient open source "MIT everything" developers of this new generation - for whom FOSS has always existed and been a good option. They generally seem to have little support for the principle of openness, and more just like getting lots of software resources they can use at no cost to build their cool start up ideas, which in turn, are often proprietary themselves and exploit the commons for their private gain. That's a perfect example of "the tragedy of the commons".

It's analogous to people who take our various social freedoms for granted because, from their perspective, they've always been there. Those people (often the younger generation born into more or less the current society) simply can't imagine that those freedoms can disappear in an instant (because they've never experienced it). Those same people often blithely dismiss the concerns of those who know better because they've seen it first hand.

Putting it another way, @danmilward, I'd be very interested in understanding the freedom provided by the MIT licence (or your preferred licence) that you value.

@davelane - The software we developed in the WordPress space is GPL (which is the licence that I prefer).

Our HTML5 game engine is MIT because for the majority of our users it offers them the freedom to publish content that doesn't fit with the GPL space.

Under the GPL if we make a game for say Lucas Arts "Star Wars" then as soon as that game is launched in their browser the whole lot including their content essentially belongs to that user - which isnt suitable for a client like Lucas Arts.

Personally I am very happy with that line in the sand.

Under other circumstances it certainly feels to me that the MIT is a cop out. I am actually considering dual licences, I was talking to Red Hat lawyers about this who confirmed that would be best of both worlds. However I also run a small business and can't afford to resource that change yet. I cannot let my own personal ideals get in the way of putting food on the plate :)

Carrying the message in a non scary way is so important. I've seen Stallman turn ROOMS of people off the GPL because of his approach - and sure in an idealistic world we'd all see beyond that but that isnt worth the risk... I think attraction rather than promotion is the way to win over the people and not put them off.

Hey folks, we are open sourcing our harvesting of the event (imagery, blogs, tweets etc).

https://www.loomio.org/g/iBobphHU
I am trying to think of the best way to collect imagery - do you have ideas/opinions? I was thinking upload to flickr with creative commons licensing AND/OR just getting people to tweet with our hashtag #OSOS2015 or we could make a public dropbox (I note none of these are great from a FOSS POV...). Then we can display through Storify.

@danmilward I agree RMS is very capable of putting people off (we can discuss why when we're at the conference :) I have some well formed theories). That doesn't in any way alter the value of his message... But I fully agree that these concepts have to be pitch to people in a way that they can receive them, building on common experience, expectations, and knowledge. Mindfulness of and accommodating other people's perspective isn't RMS' strongest suit.

Pleased to hear you're a GPL supporter. My own FOSS background includes a LOT of Linux and Drupal, both GPL v2 projects (Drupal is GPL v2 or later), and like WP, both are brilliant demonstrations of how "The Commons" can protect itself with smart use of the existing law (particularly GNU-related hacks, i.e. the GPL - I use "hack" in the best sense of that word). I was intrigued to see (last year) that in response to a request from the Drupal community, the Bootstrap community dual licenced Bootstrap so that it would be compatible with the GPL...

In regards to your statement about ideals getting in the way of food on the plate, I feel very bad for people who are in the position where they have to choose. Trying to live with that sort of cognitive dissonance would probably break me - thus my career choices all along. I firmly believe who and what I work for is an ethical decision...

@megansalole regarding open source appointment scheduling apps (an open source alternative to Doodle?), there're quite a few (I don't have any personal experience with these - would tend to first try a Django-based one over other technologies), e.g. https://nuages.domainepublic.net/ or https://framadate.org/

For a larger list, check out http://alternativeto.net/software/doodle/?license=opensource

@megansalole For curating and archiving content from the conference, I'd recommend setting up a Flickr group for #OSOS2015, and making it really clear what the main hashtag for the conference is. I don't know if the Dropbox solution would be a good solution.

@danmilward @davelane @alanna

I think attraction rather than promotion is the way to win over the people and not put them off.

Hear hear.

One of the "open" world's greatest challenges is demonstrating "marketing savvy". Open source has resonated most with technical creators (developers) who are focused on finding elegant and correct solutions to technical problems as opposed to aesthetic creators (designers) who also seem better attuned to the human factors like "making something which the market wants". The main issue is that marketing has become an amoral profession, built around exploiting human frailty (e.g. lack of discipline, suggestibility, etc.) to maximise profit often to the overall detriment of the market, rather than being "open" about what they're doing. This makes the onus on champions of "open" more difficult, because we can't employ these same exploitative devices without stooping to the same level and being liable for exposure... So we need to sell things based on their actual merits, which are often difficult to explain, or aren't perceived as valuable by the market. It's a major challenge. How do we get people to care about their own best interest?

I just read that and thought it is dangerous to assume that what is in your best interest is also in somebody else's best interest.

And that is why attraction rather than promotion is so important. In my opinion.

Live the talk. I people are attracted they will come and if not... who cares because you're being authentic to yourself and your own standards :)

d