[Scale-planning] Free Software Representation at SCaLE

Wayne wspeir at gmail.com
Tue Jan 24 21:11:03 PST 2012


I worked the KDE booth this year and we were specifically asked if we would like to present a talk. Unfortunately none of us has time to prepare one this year. 

-- Wayne

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 24, 2012, at 8:57 PM, Lei Zhang <leiz at ucla.edu> wrote:

> If you look at the mission statement on [1], the topic for SCALE is
> Open Source software. We do not restrict ourselves to only Free
> Software, nor do we give special consideration to Free Software.
> SCALE tries to cater to everyone, thus there is a good mix of talks
> about various aspects of Open Source software.
> 
> With regards to your claim that Tom Callaway's talk is the only Free
> Software talk, I would like to point out Bradley Kuhn from the FSF gave
> a talk as well. While you may feel Oracle projects are not "perfectly"
> Free Software, as far as I am concerned, BTRFS is licensed under the
> GPL, and thus equally as Free as any other software licensed under the
> GPL.
> 
> Additionally, Debian probably have had a booth at SCALE every year, and
> the FSF and SFLC have had booths at SCALE in past years.
> 
> If you feel Free Software is under-represented, please encourage Free
> Software speakers to submit presentations for future SCALE events, and
> for Free Software groups to apply for a booth at SCALE.
> 
> [1] https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale10x/about-scale
> [2] https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale10x/presentations/12-years-floss-license-compliance-historical-perspective
> 
> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 07:22:19PM -0800, Mark Holmquist wrote:
>> Hi!
>> 
>> I didn't want to voice this concern before the conference (figuring
>> that, like me, the planning team had plenty to do already), but now I
>> have something pretty important to say. Read on.
>> 
>> Some background: I'm a Free Software user. That means that when you tell
>> me "Southern California Linux Expo", I wonder why "GNU" isn't included.
>> I also wonder why BSD and Haiku (among other, non-Linux operating
>> systems) are included.
>> 
>> But those things are not the real reason I'm emailing today. It is
>> because, this year, I noticed a marked absence of free software talks
>> and programs. The FOSS Mentoring program, which was a step in the right
>> direction, remained (though, I think, was added very late). Many other,
>> new programs were added that represent the Open Source ideals. There are
>> also new programs that represent the Linux community. There were
>> presentations on nonfree cloud services (in fact, the Saturday keynote
>> focused on one). There were several presentations on Oracle projects,
>> which cannot be in *perfect* keeping with Free Software ideals. In fact,
>> the only other example of a Free Software presentation I can see is Tom
>> Callaway's, for which I commend him.
>> 
>> This brings me to a question: Is the Free Software community so
>> diminutive that no speakers wanted to address them? Or is this a
>> preference of the SCaLE planners that is manifesting in policy? Another
>> question: Is it wise, given this conference's need for attendees, to
>> systematically exclude any community that would otherwise want to
>> attend? I hope to discuss this further upon replies.
>> 
>> I, for one, refused to attend for those very reasons, so I hope that you
>> will consider changing these policies, or maybe asking for term-agnostic
>> presentations, before next year's conference. Thanks.
>> 
>> -- 
>> Mark Holmquist
>> Student, Computer Science
>> University of Redlands
>> MarkTraceur at gmail.com
>> 
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