[Scale-planning] Free Software Representation at SCaLE

Mark Holmquist marktraceur at gmail.com
Wed Jan 25 18:31:46 PST 2012


OK, so very clearly my answering questions was not a good idea. I will
leave it, then, at this:

There is no political concern right now. The only concern is one of
agnostic terms.

Even "Free/Libre/Open Source Software" could potentially be perceived as
too specific by the Public Domain/Open Access/Free Culture community
members who happened to be at the conference. And even the mere
exclusion of someone's community can make them feel uncomfortable, even
if the person speaking means no offense.

I don't expect that the conference can be perfect, even in this respect,
but I think starting at "Free/Libre/Open Source" would at least be a
step forward. Talking to presenters and staff members, encouraging use
of that term in place of anything more specific, would benefit
*everyone*, and not just any one community.

By the by--and this is still on the matter of inclusion, nothing
else--it is probably not a good idea for conference volunteers to refer
to others' ideals as "silly", thereby immediately making others
uncomfortable in the conversation. I happen to forgo theatres and DVDs
for the very reasons listed above--I don't think it makes me "silly", I
think it makes me a concerned citizen who doesn't like corporate
influence over my personal life. I don't know about the software in my
car, but it is very limited. I would almost certainly ask about the
software in my car if it did anything more than control a simple CD
changer--GPS, for example, would greatly concern me. I imagine that
people who have reached the same point in Free Software adoption would
think very similarly.

Finally, please don't respond to this email (or any others) to weigh in
on the merits of the Free Software philosoph(y|ies). I merely brought
them up to illustrate points relating to the main topic, which is laid
out in the first few paragraphs of this email.

Cheers,

-- 
Mark Holmquist
Student, Computer Science
University of Redlands
MarkTraceur at gmail.com



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