jboy @ [tbd]
Accepted Proposals:
What comes after FOSS? Mapping moves out of dystopia
More and more hackers are disillusioned with the politics of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). "The rot is in the roots," blogger Steve Klabnik proclaimed five years ago. Since then, with events like the log4j2 and xz vulnerabilities, the issue has come into even starker relief. FOSS infrastructures go unsupported, become unmaintained, and turn into liabilities. They are exploited by parasitic corporations who scrape, compress and repackage them as generative models, or integrate them into products that are sold to wage metaphorical or literal wars around the world. FOSS enables platformization, enshittification, and monetization.
Bruce Perens, one of the inventors of the "open source" label, has proposed that it may be time for a fix on the licensing level. What he tentatively terms "Post-Open" is meant to ensure that software developers get adequate financial support when the fruits of their labor are used by those with deep pockets. Others have also proposed various licenses that would limit "freedom 0" for big companies (or at least those unwilling to pay). While this may address issues of compensation and maintenance, it still leaves open a whole slew of other issues. Ultimately, as Christine Lemmer-Webber has argued, FOSS is not about licenses, but about wider social and environmental consequences. When "predator drones run Linux," we need to do more than produce FOSS infrastructures and hope for the best. How are hackers addressing these wider consequences? That's what we will discuss together.
In a guided discussion under Chatham House Rules, will map ways that hackers and other critical technologists (media artists, designers, civil society activists, journalists, academics) are departing from FOSS, not necessarily by abandoning its principles and licenses, but by finding other projects with which to align themselves. This may include server collectives, permacomputing, and much more. The aim is to learn from each other about exciting spaces and projects, and maybe also about opportunities to engage in such work with funding and in a way that brings lasting joy.
Accepted Proposals:
What comes after FOSS? Mapping moves out of dystopia
More and more hackers are disillusioned with the politics of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). "The rot is in the roots," blogger Steve Klabnik proclaimed five years ago. Since then, with events like the log4j2 and xz vulnerabilities, the issue has come into even starker relief. FOSS infrastructures go unsupported, become unmaintained, and turn into liabilities. They are exploited by parasitic corporations who scrape, compress and repackage them as generative models, or integrate them into products that are sold to wage metaphorical or literal wars around the world. FOSS enables platformization, enshittification, and monetization.
Bruce Perens, one of the inventors of the "open source" label, has proposed that it may be time for a fix on the licensing level. What he tentatively terms "Post-Open" is meant to ensure that software developers get adequate financial support when the fruits of their labor are used by those with deep pockets. Others have also proposed various licenses that would limit "freedom 0" for big companies (or at least those unwilling to pay). While this may address issues of compensation and maintenance, it still leaves open a whole slew of other issues. Ultimately, as Christine Lemmer-Webber has argued, FOSS is not about licenses, but about wider social and environmental consequences. When "predator drones run Linux," we need to do more than produce FOSS infrastructures and hope for the best. How are hackers addressing these wider consequences? That's what we will discuss together.
In a guided discussion under Chatham House Rules, will map ways that hackers and other critical technologists (media artists, designers, civil society activists, journalists, academics) are departing from FOSS, not necessarily by abandoning its principles and licenses, but by finding other projects with which to align themselves. This may include server collectives, permacomputing, and much more. The aim is to learn from each other about exciting spaces and projects, and maybe also about opportunities to engage in such work with funding and in a way that brings lasting joy.