(apologies for that quiz)
Four Stories, Three Arguments, and One Q&A Luis Villa Duke CPS 82
lots of obvious themes, two (less obvious) themes
lucky (and unusual) life
no formal 'wisdom'
Story #1: tieguy
lots of time in line, but also...
admission: I sort of created modern 'cheer sheets'
(we were bored, there was ethernet)
N&O: 'ringleader'
lots of friends
one job offer
one nickname
Story #2: best summer job(s) ever
Lego!
found a crazy german
found a fun loving italian
Story #3: life on the interblag
Story #4: software code to legal code
Duke GPL in Alspaugh 200Mb HD of mp3s slashdot.org moderation “Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace” good (not great) programmer
post-Duke Duke Conference on the Public Domain mediocre lawyers Novell acquired... what? friends with startups Post-9/11 surveillance
MESSAGE
That was waaaay too much about me.
lets talk software and source code
2 10 ~= 1000
three things
1st: open source works
(not tool for every job)
(not magic)
(but generally, it works)
2nd: open source matters
3rd: software freedom matters
open source works
Lego!
Evolution 1.0 QA
what about something bigger?
wikipedia: 100,000,000 hours
linux: 110,000,000 hours
seems big
turns out people have a lot of free time
TV ads, in the US, in one weekend: 100,000,000 hours
how? why?
transaction costs want to be zero
in other words: collaborating used to be hard
now it is silly easy
hence, open source works
(if time: where doesn't it work?)
now: open source matters
“It has been estimated that open source software products accounted for a 13% share of the $92.7 billion software market in 2006, and that they will account for a 27% share in 2011.” –amicus curiae, Jacobsen v. Katzer
1988: MIT sponsored ~ no one used it
1999: Red Hat IPO tentative commercial use
2008: everyone sponsors everyone uses
big
small
cheap, easy, and custom matters
can't overstate: open source matters
final and most controversial: software freedom matters
software is education
software is the press
software counts votes
software is core to economy
software is important
as important as factories or feudalism
(as important as democracy or tyranny?)
for the first time, we can choose opacity or transparency
for the first time, we can choose autonomy or control
might disagree about the right choices and balances
(because there are balances)
but it is important to know there is a choice
software freedom matters because it forces us to make that choice consciously
so... questions?
Made with: Fedora Linux (fedoraproject.org) GNOME (gnome.org) OpenOffice.org (openoffice.org) Flickr Creative Commons Search (flickr.com) Available soon from: More questions answered soon on the blog!
Picture Credits (CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, or CC-BY-NC) ● by kaibara ● by faeryboots ● by firepile ● by teosaurio ● by Randall Munroe ● by extraketchup ● by tracy olson ● by olpc ● by winning information ● by uncleweed ● By ee_cue ● Lego parts not CC: