Open Source and the Mayas or: Building a future for Open Source

Open Source and the Mayas – Building a future for
Open Source

@ffffux My name is Lena. I'm a writer and photographer
specializing in communications, community building and project management in tech. I’m currently working on Open Source projects in full time, mainly on Hoodie and CouchDB, and I’m the CEO of a company working on prototypes and products based on Hoodie. picture: https://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/neuro74/6339990758/sizes/l/ https://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/neuro74/ license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.de

The hills which you can see behind me are a
place I’ve always loved. It’s an area close to the village where I grew up. It’s a wonderful place with a huge forest close to it and you can often see deers, rabbits or foxes there. Usually, it is a very silent place - but this silence is sometimes interrupted: by the farmers with their agricultural machines, driving over their ﬁelds. –– This is where it all began. And this is where this talk begins. –– This land – is cultivated land. –– This -- is culture. --- Let’s take a look at its etymology and see why. -- The English term “culture” evolved in the mid-15th century and originally meant

the tilling of land Culture “the tilling of land” and
referred to the very early beginnings of land use - when people started to make areas in the landscape useable for their purposes, took care of it, maintained it, grew plants for themselves, their families or to feed their animals. The original term culture was http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=culture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture#Etymology

who cares works brings in the harvest Culture about who
cared for which parts of land, who did the work on it and who brought in the harvest. In addition to this literal meaning of culture, there’s a ﬁgurative sense which leads to the main case in which we use it today. Our modern term culture refers to a community which shares common experiences that shape the way its members understand the world. It is the expression of the way how we act. -- -- So now, let’s start transferring the ﬁrst ideas we just collected to the world of Free, Libre and Open Source Software today (to make it easier, I’ll refer to “Open Source” from now on, still meaning all of them). -- And let’s start by taking a look at the status of Open Source today. -> http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/cultural-competence/culture-and-diversity/main http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulturphilosophie

Technology Mobile, Social Media, Cloud, Big Data Open Source today
and Business Technology-wise, Open Source is highly relevant - Mobile, Social Media, Cloud Services and Big Data, four very important technologies of our time, rely heavily on Open Source. Open Source is also relevant for business. It contributes 450 billion euros per year only to the European economy. -- And its core values make Open Source -> more: 114 billion euro by saving the economy money, the results of reinvestments, productivity increase and efficiency are worth over 340 billion euros. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/contribution-open-source-europes-economy-450-billion-yea Mobile – Apple’s iOS libraries includes Open Source libraries – Apple even has their own Apple Public Source License. And, of course, Firefox OS. Social Media – Facebook creates and uses Open Source in their software. The same is with Twitter and Linkedin. Wordpress has given millions of people the opportunity to share their thoughts online. Cloud – Amazon WebServices are powered by Open Source technology like SugarCRM. Amazon RDS relies on MySQL, the Open Source database. Apache is still THE Web server, running large parts of the internet today. Big Data – Hadoop, CouchDB and MongoDB are powering BigData. Big companies rely on Open Source. Some industries rely in important sectors on it. F+O technologies power much of the infrastructure that makes the Internet possible. s.a. http://www.publicpolicy.telefonica.com/blogs/blog/2014/01/10/the-importance-of-free-software-is-not-limited-to-technology-the-open-source-movement-is- evolving-to-encompass-more-areas-of-our-lives/

gives users options enables independence drives innovation Open Source Open
Source today a technology that gives users options, enables independence and drives innovation. -- But there’s one core feature of Open Source that distinguishes it from most other software that is being developed today and that depicts why the culture in Open Source matters – even more than you may expect up to now. Perhaps you have already heard of Mars Climate Orbiter ->

Culture Matters Mars Climate Orbiter was a robotic space probe
launched by [Näsa] in 1998 to study the climate, atmosphere and surface changes on Mars. And this space probe ﬁnally got lost in space - it disintegrated due to atmospheric stresses. What was the reason for this robot’s death? It was caused by a human communication failure - in total, it was four pieces of software producing and expecting data in different units. Two navigators had noticed those issues, but their concerns had been dismissed. -- What happened here, is brieﬂy described by Conway’s Law. Introduced in 1968 by Melvin Conway, a computer programmer, it states that -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter pic source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/19/Mars_Climate_Orbiter_2.jpg/1126px-Mars_Climate_Orbiter_2.jpg by NASA, public domain

Culture Matters Organizations produce designs which are copies of their
communication structures (Conway’s Law) “organizations which design systems ... produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations”. -- Open Source carries Conway’s Law to extremes. As a scientist phrased it: In Open Source, “there is a hybridism of dialogue and code, where the dialogue is directly embedded in the code’’ He called Open source a ”… distributed network of people and things” that -> source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law http://www2.parc.com/csl/members/nicolas/documents/JCSCW-OSS.pdf

Open Source is the materialization of language. (D. Mahendran) Culture
Matters “…is constructed through the materialization of language.” In other words: all communications in an Open Source project will have direct impact on the product (like the software) which is built. All communications, - no matter if there are any, if they are peaceful or violent or if there are none at all. -- This is why it’s even more relevant that we have a proper culture in Open Source. -- But when talking about Open Source in general, you often just have to wait a few minutes until someone says something about -> source: http://www2.parc.com/csl/members/nicolas/documents/JCSCW-OSS.pdf

Community matters Community Matters “THE COMMUNITY”. So, let’s take a
closer look at it. .->

Community matters (at least as much as you may think)
Community Matters Diana Harrelson, at this time a Masters Candidate in Anthropology and now graduated, did scientiﬁc research on the Fedora Open Source Community during one development cycle. - Among other questions, she asked the project members if they’d say that those people “who collectively participate in the Fedora Project [were] a community". -- 75% percent of the respondents agreed, some adding answers like: source: http://www.cyber-anthro.com/beta-an-exploration-of-fedora%E2%80%99s-online-open-source-development-community/

Without the Community we’re lost. (Fedora Community Member, study by
Diana Harrelson) Community Matters “The community *is* the project. …” – and: “Without the Community we’re lost.” -- But even if everyone is talking about the community and appreciating it - they’re often missing its essential point. As Joseph Raz, a philosopher of our days phrased it: source: http://www.cyber-anthro.com/beta-an-exploration-of-fedora%E2%80%99s-online-open-source-development-community/

If the culture is decaying, … the options and opportunities
open to its members will shrink. (J. Raz) Community Matters “If the culture is decaying, or if it is persecuted or discriminated against, the options and opportunities open to its members will shrink.” –- Community is not just about building nice stuff and hanging around with nice people in chat rooms, on mailing lists or on conferences like this one today. -- Every troll, every sexist comment, every harrassment towards just one single ommunity member will directly harm this person, the entire community, the product that you’re building and ﬁnally Open Source in general - its values, its ideas and its existence. -- -> source: Joseph Raz, Ethics in the Public Domain: Essays in the Morality of Law and Politics (1994), Clarendon Press. Entire quote: “It... [is] a brute fact that our world is organized in large measure around groups with pervasive cultures.... membership of such groups... greatly affects one's opportunities.... If the culture is decaying, or if it is persecuted or discriminated against, the options and opportunities open to its members will shrink.”

The Future of Open Source will be determined by its
Culture. Community Matters And this is why once a community’s culture is broken, the entire community is endangered and ﬁnally the project is. And why we have to take even more care of the culture in Open Source communities - because the future of Open Source will be mainly determined by its culture. -- So let’s see what we have to care for in our communities to build a future for Open Source and what kind of community culture we need to establish. --- As a start, let me ask you a question (remember that raise-your-arm-thing? We try something different now: I ask you something, and you shout at me. Can you do that? :) ) What would you estimate, how many percent of all people in the entire world are software developers? … … … ->

Building a Future It’s 18 Million people in total. Which
is a bit less than 0.26 percent of the entire world population, and this number already includes hobbyists who just write code in their free time. Which means: for every software developer out there, there are -> data sources: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/there-are-185-million-software-developers-in-the-world-but-which-country-has-the-most/ http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9240676/India_to_overtake_U.S._on_number_of_developers_by_2017 http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html

Building a Future 399 people who have other professions or
just don’t code. Now, when we remember the great, big goals that Open Source has and think about building its future - maybe it could be useful for our developer to get some more of those 399 people on board to ensure this can be done. To explain you why, -> data sources: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/there-are-185-million-software-developers-in-the-world-but-which-country-has-the-most/ http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9240676/India_to_overtake_U.S._on_number_of_developers_by_2017 http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html

Building a Future I’ll take you on a short excursion
to biology now. As Charles Elton, an Ecologist, argued, "simple [non-diverse] communities [are] more easily upset than … richer ones; that is, [they’re] more vulnerable …". -- In biology, there’s a special research ﬁeld for this kind of topic, and part of it is the so-called “stability-diversity hypothesis”. In short, this hypothesis states that the more diverse a community is, the more stable and productive it is. Decreasing diversity will tend to increase the probability that communities undergo destabilizing dynamics and even collapses. A great example for a space which is diverse by default -> source: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ecology/Community_succession_and_stability http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v405/n6783/full/405228a0.html#B8

Building a Future are rain forests. Typically, they possess a
great deal of species diversity. Around 40-75% of all biotic species are native to the rainforests. -- Same is with data :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainforest picture: N. Tackaberry, https://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/23629083@N03/6869912427 License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/deed.de

Building a Future Coral Reefs – they occupy less than
0.1% of the world's ocean surface, which is around the size of France, yet they provide a home for 25% of all marine species. -- Diversity is in natural settings usually nothing we have to implement or fix -> data, quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_reef picture: USFWS Pacific Region, https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/5565696408/sizes/l/in/photostream/ License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.de

Diversity is a Natural Law Building a Future – normally,
it’s just there to protect cultures, to prevent them from vanishing and to enable the stability of ecosystems. It’s there because it’s a Natural Law. According to this we have to state: -> data, quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_reef picture: USFWS Pacific Region, https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/5565696408/sizes/l/in/photostream/ License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.de

Diversity is a Natural Law If it’s not diverse, it’s
broken. Building a Future If a community is not diverse, it’s broken. Natural settings are diverse by default. In artificial settings, like Open Source communities are, everyone of us has to take care for diversity - because it matters and ensures stability. -- Now let’s look in which fields we need to aim for diversity. And, to be honest, the answer is quite short this time: -> Quotes: http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/cultural-competence/culture-and-diversity/main data, quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_reef picture: USFWS Pacific Region, https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/5565696408/sizes/l/in/photostream/ License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.de

Diversity in Open Source includes everyone and is everyone’s job
Building a Future We should aim for diversity in everything we do. We urgently need a wide range of ideas, customs, and wisdom to solve problems and build a future for Open Source. -- But: this is not just the job of women or people of colour or trans* people. It is a daily task for everyone of us - regardless of our gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. -- Let’s take a look at some examples for ﬁelds in which we need to work on diversity: - >

women men Building a Future This is what gender diversity
looks like amongst humans globally. Given birth rates, the numbers of men and women are almost equal. -> sources http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/there-are-185-million-software-developers-in-the-world-but-which-country-has-the-most/ http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9240676/India_to_overtake_U.S._on_number_of_developers_by_2017 http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html sex ratio: 1.07 (107 male : 100 females) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio female devs http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorikozlowski/2012/03/22/women-in-tech-female-developers-by-the-numbers/ female devs http://qz.com/143967/the-tech-industrys-woman-problem-statistics-show-its-worse-than-you-think/ females in OS http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/FLOSS FLOSS poll http://flosspols.org/deliverables/D16HTML/FLOSSPOLS-D16-Gender_Integrated_Report_of_Findings.htm

women men Building a Future This is what gender ratio
in Open Source looks like. 98 percent men. 2 percent women. -- But this is not only about a binary gender system here. This is not just about “men” and “women”. We can of course look at these numbers and compare them with the chart before or with the fact that there are 28% females in Tech in general, but only 2% in Open Source. But what about -> sources http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/there-are-185-million-software-developers-in-the-world-but-which-country-has-the-most/ http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9240676/India_to_overtake_U.S._on_number_of_developers_by_2017 http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html sex ratio: 1.07 (107 male : 100 females) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio female devs http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorikozlowski/2012/03/22/women-in-tech-female-developers-by-the-numbers/ female devs http://qz.com/143967/the-tech-industrys-woman-problem-statistics-show-its-worse-than-you-think/ females in tech http://people.cs.umass.edu/~wallach/talks/2011-04-05_JHU.pdf females in OS http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/FLOSS FLOSS poll http://flosspols.org/deliverables/D16HTML/FLOSSPOLS-D16-Gender_Integrated_Report_of_Findings.htm

Building a Future Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Transgender, Intersexual and
Queer* people? There is so little space for them in the Open Source culture of our times that there are not even numbers. And it’s worst for people who are marginalized twice or even more - because they are e.g. women of colour. Because we also need -> further reading: http://lukasblakk.com/why-i-was-part-of-creating-a-thing-called-transtech/ http://www.decolonialtranslation.com/english/white-women-and-the-priviledge-of-solidarity.html http://geekfeminism.org/2014/03/19/language-for-trans-inclusive-events/

Diversity in ethnicity Building a Future We need diversity in
ethnicity. White people are still forming the major mass of people in Open Source, although for example India is already highly- developed technology-wise and African countries like Rwanda, Kenya or Uganda are currently experiencing large progress and growth in this ﬁeld. We need to get people of all ethnicities into our projects to broaden our own horizons, have their ideas embedded in what we build and be able to reach more people -- and - to have them in, because we believe that diversity matters. -- ->

Being a committer does not mean you commit code, it
means you are committed to the project. (Apache Software Foundation) Building a Future The Apache Software Foundation states: “Being a committer does not mean you commit code, it means you are committed to the project.” -- We need to raise our awareness and aim for diversity in skills. We need designers who build well-usable UI and proper UX for our products. We need writers who can write about it, create content for websites or repos and provide good documentation. We need people who ﬁnd and report bugs, create translations, organize events and people who care for the community and work on attracting new contributors. We need people who help us spread the word about Open Source so more people hear about it and use the software we build. -- We need - non- coding contributors. Because many of them are experts in exactly those topics. And we need them to make our communities more stable and sustainable. -- -> further reading: For details about attracting non-coders to OSS communities, see e.g. this talk I gave recently: https://speakerdeck.com/ffffux/confessions-of-an-alien-attracting-non- coding-experts-to-your-open-source-project-1 Apache quote: http://community.apache.org/contributors/

When everybody is making technology, the technology they make will
be for everybody. (Aaron Hartwig) Building a Future Same goes with diversity in ideas and backgrounds - the broader the amount of ideas, backgrounds and experiences in our communities, the further we can go. Or, to phrase it like Aaron Hartwig recently did on Twitter: “When everybody is making technology, the technology they make will be for everybody.” -- -> Quote: @aaron_hartwig https://twitter.com/aaron_hartwig/status/460887193826111489

who and what is being valued in our projects Community
Culture is our daily answer to the question Building a Future Community means the appreciation of diversity and variety. Community culture is our daily answer to the question who (which people) and what (which kind of contributions) is being welcomed and valued in our projects. -- Because ﬁnally, – we can only build a future for Open Source if we embrace diversity. -- Now, after looking at the relevance of diversity, let’s get to a very basic question which is about the reasons why we’re building software. --- “Cogito ergo sum” - “I think, therefore I am”. The French philosopher René Descartes used this phrase to describe human’s existence. Or, to rephrase it a bit: ->

A donut’s hole proves the existence of the donut. (R.
Descartes, rephrased) Building a Future “A donut’s hole proves the existence of the donut.” - So let’s think about the question why Open Source exists and why it is built. As seen, there are -> pic: Flickr / vnysia (CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/vnysia/4598569232 License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

Open Source Software is built for pursuing its values Building
a Future strong values and goals that keep the idea of Open Source alive: like providing alternatives to closed-source software, enabling independence and driving innovation. But still, there’s something missing. -- So let’s get back to the nitty-gritty and consider what Software usually does. -- Software is built to perform useful work, run a computer system, provide entertainment functions, solve problems, offer solutions, make things better. But -- make things better for whom? --> pic: Flickr / vnysia (CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/vnysia/4598569232 License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

Open Source Software is built for users Building a Future
Software is built for for developers, for people who don’t know how to code, for people. In short: Software, including Open Source Software, is built for users. Any software exists for being used by someone somewhere. -- I’m sure you still remember our -> pic: Flickr / vnysia (CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/vnysia/4598569232 License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software#Purpose.2C_or_domain_of_use

Building a Future developer, sitting there amongst 399 non-developers. Now
I just gave these 399 people a few more colours to get them closer to reality … ->

Building a Future and there we go. In case you’re
searching for our developer now: she’s the blue person in the green area. :) When we’re talking about software, we can’t have this conversation without talking about users. Software is built for them. And each of those 399 people (and even our developer herself who will also be a software user) have their very own, individual needs. -- So what is happening when we build software? ->

Building a Future This is what’s happening: our software developer
works on the software, and while she’s doing so, she’s always keeping the users in mind. (At least, this is what’s happening ideally. We all know that this is sometimes really, really hard. :) ) She’s working towards optimizing the software according to their needs. This is what is called an act of representation. And this is exactly one of the topics our communities need to be aware of. ->

Building Software is an act of representation Building a Future
Most of us, the people who are here today, are very privileged - many of us have had access to education, to water and food, and infrastructure like electricity and internet access. Even with those items which we tend to take for granted too often, we are already very privileged. And with these items, we are already very far away from the reality of millions of people on this planet. -- -> pic: Flickr / vnysia (CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/vnysia/4598569232 License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/ quote from: http://indietech.org/ Manifesto

Building Software is an act of representation Building a Future
And even if we just take a closer look at our Western society, it’s not getting better. The users of our software are a very diverse group - no matter if regarding gender, ethnicity, their personal abilities or disabilities, skills and own cultural backgrounds. -- Even if we try to use our imagination and even if we may share some of their realities and experiences, - the level of what we can actually really share is very limited. This is why it’s so important to not only keep the users in our minds, – it’s the reason why we have to make our communities diverse places for all people so we finally build software that really solves the users’ problems (and not just ours), that creates good experiences for THEM, - so they’ll finally use it. --- This is why it’s so important to have initiatives like “Independent Tech” (indietech.org), initialised the designer Aral Balkan, that are bringing design thinking to open source and that promote building “design-led organisations to create consumer products that are … accesssible, seamless, secure, and social.” -- To fulfill our representation role. And to finally enable people to really

Representation through diversity enables trust Building a Future trust the
software we’re building. -- Because representation means responsibility. –– I want to give you an example which depicts the trust issue we’re exposing our users to far too often. The “Queer Chorus”, a choir group in Austin, Texas, had a Facebook group for its choir’s members. The president of the chorus added two members of the choir to this Facebook group. What the president didn’t know: Facebook automatically told all their friends that they were now members of the chorus. The thing is: they both had not revealed their sexual orientation to their friends and families themselves. It was Facebook that did that - by inadvertently exposing their sexuality to their friends and families, which led to serious problems they had afterwards with members of their families. -- Many more people have been stung by accidentally revealing secrets online that were easier kept in the past. We need to keep examples like this in mind and build software that respects its users. And this will will be a major step towards enabling them to trust. -- -> source: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444165804578008740578200224

Representation through diversity enables trust and freedom Building a Future
I’m sure you’re already heard of the term that Free, Libre and Open Source is “free, but not ‘free’ as in ‘Free Beer’”. The goal of Open Source is a great and big one. It’s the idea of giving users choices, power and control over the tools they use. It’s often stated that users are enabled to see how the apps they’re using work, check if they’re secure and change them if they want to. Of course it’s good for them to have the opportunity and this is why Open Source is important. -- So, let me ask you another question, and now it’s the “please raise your hand”-time again: who of you has at least once read the source code of your mail server that your email provider runs for you? ------ http://www.wired.com/2013/09/why-free-software-is-more-important-now-than-ever-before

Representation through diversity enables trust and freedom Building a Future
So we have to ask: how many people actually can do this? How many people have not only the interest, but also the resources and knowledge to check the source code of their software and see what’s happening there? How close to people’s actual realities can this idea practically be? The idea of long-term freedom for users through Open Source is a great goal which we have to perceive. But we have to take care to not make this a patronizing ideal that forgets about many people’s realities. We have to keep in mind that this will only be reachable if we build products understanding their needs, their capabilities are and what we can do to make this freedom a thing which is closer to people’s realities than it is now. --- After thinking so much about diversity in various ways and user-centered development, let’s think again of the relevance of language: Open source means the materialization of language. Dialogue is directly embedded in our code. So let’s see why else language matters. -> http://www.wired.com/2013/09/why-free-software-is-more-important-now-than-ever-before

3,229 languages Building a Future I want to show you
a bit of the “Endangered Languages” project. It’s a project maintained by an alliance for linguistic diversity, aiming to preserve languages. Every dot you can see on this map excerpt stands for one of over 3,000 languages that are currently at risk of becoming extinct. Language loss is not new—languages have fallen out of use since ancient times. -> (Screenshot: http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/#/3/-45.761/275.454/0/100000/0/low/mid/high/dormant/awakening/unknown )

Don’t talk just kiss? Building a Future And with Mandarin
Chinese, Spanish and English, the three languages with the most native speakers today, large parts of the world population could still talk. - So why should we care if languages are lost? -- Let me ask you one thing ﬁrst: who of you is a programmer or has ever done anything related to programming, like editing a bit of HTML or CSS? … … … As people who can deal with programming languages, you know one of their core functionalities is that: -> https://docs.google.com/document/d/19MvWf22roO_egGdcma1rSAplMrQitKskxL3xn0gBgSU/edit#

Language shapes reality Building a Future Language shapes reality. One
change in an expression in the source code of an application can affect everything. Language is an essential part of our culture and shapes the way we express ourselves. And this is why the disappearance of languages is a human concern. When a language disappears into oblivion, we are all diminished. -- Thus, Silencing people and their voices in Open Source destables and endangers each and every one of us. We in Open Source have to stop silencing people when they speak out about threats, mobbing, sexism or other topics that show our broken culture. Marginalized people are fewer in number and don’t have the voice and reach that we do. We have to support them speciﬁcally to help them speak out. -- Another danger we’re currently facing is shown by what happened to the Mayas. -> source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/06/0627_020628_wadedavis.html

Building a Future Although their culture and civilization where highly-developed,
it declined and suddenly disappeared around 800-900BC. It is said that this was the result of a combination of prolongued droughts and

Internal Conflicts & Elites Building a Future and extensive, long-lasting
internal conﬂicts. Some archaeologists add that the Maya "collapse" was merely a collapse of the ruling elites. These theories can’t be proven 100%, but the Maya show us that it's neither change nor technology that threatens the integrity of a culture, both of which the Maya had plenty. It is -- –> http://archaeology.about.com/cs/latinamerica/a/copan.htm Picture: Sergio Somavilla, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 https://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/ssomavilla/2288193041/sizes/l/in/gallery-voyagevobe-72157625044039205/ License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

If the needs of individuals in a culture are suppressed,
social systems can become unstable. Building a Future power — the crude face of domination. If the needs of individuals in one culture are continually suppressed, social systems can become unstable. --- We have talked about Diana Harrelson’s research in Fedora before. 75% of the respondents had totally agreed that the Fedora Open Source project IS a community. But why did 25% not think it was a one? -- One person said: “I used to believe that it was a community, but it seems more like a grouping of various anarchists and monarchists who think everyone else is like them.” Another said it was like “More of a super-clique.” Domination and the suppression of individual needs are extremely dangerous. -> Source / Diana Harrelson’s research: http://www.cyber-anthro.com/beta-an-exploration-of-fedora%E2%80%99s-online-open-source-development-community/

Democracy & Decentralization Building a Future Open Source projects usually
refer to a high level of democracy as one of their core values. The development in Open Source is based on the so-called “Bazaar Model”, in which roles of the people involved are not clearly defined and that states that users should be treated as co-developers. But data shows that Open Source Software is not quite as democratic as it often proclaims to be and as this model suggests - analysis shows that of five billion bytes of Open Source code, 74% was written by the most active 10% authors. This leads us to a shift away from the state of Open Source today - more democracy in Open Source will require a more diverse community to enable a more stable democratic process. -- Hand in hand with democracy goes - Decentralization. The Open Source model includes the concept of differing agendas and approaches in production, - like in peer production and public availability of all sources, end products and documentation. The more diversity we reach, the more we’re able to integrate various approaches, differing agendas and finally make our communities more stable, build better products and push decentralization forward. -- -> --- data source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software

Building a Future Open Source is bigger than each of
us individually This has to include a shift in power structures. And, yes, we do have power structures in Open Source: our current lack of diversity and sticking to meritocracy have led to power structures that are, as seen, not as democratic as they seem at ﬁrst glance, and they’re mostly copies of the partriarchy around us. We really have to take care to avoid cliques and elites which exclude community members, silence people and enforce those unhealthy power structures that destabilize our communities. We have to stop the marginalization of people, the worshipping of heroes, bro culture, “rock stars”, “code unicorns” and get back to real democracy by ﬁnding ways to involve everyone in our communities. Because the idea of Open Source and its goals are far bigger than each of us individually, and they reach further than we can ever go ourselves and alone. -- This also includes ->

value contribution Find new models to Building a Future We
have to find new models to value contribution. Usually, it’s still mainly defined by meritocracy, “the belief that those with merit float to the top - that they should be given more opportunities and be” given higher rewards. Many people hold the idea of meritocracy close, which I understand. But when we’re thinking about building the future of Open Source, we should see the big picture and include those who have less opportunity, time and money that would allow them to freely contribute. As Ashe Dryden pointed out: "Marginalized people in tech … have less free time for a few major reasons: dependent care, domestic work / errands, and pay inequity." This is why we need to re-think what merits can be, what it means to “earn” them and how this can be done, regarding the needs of marginalized people. ------ As seen in many aspects, -> Quotes: Ashe Dryden, http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor-and-the-oss-community

Building a Future the Community is the driving force behind
and in Open Source projects. It’s the motor that helps them stay alive. -- You know that in our bodies, we have arteries and veins, both part of our circulatory system. Arteries are the blood vessels that carry blood away from the heart, mostly oxygenated blood. Thus, oxygen and nutrients are delivered to all our cells. There is a special coronary artery which is located directly at our heart. Its job is to supply blood to the heart muscle and thus keep it working. -- Still, it sometimes happens that there is -> Pic source: http://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/entry_photo_images/7913847/heart_shutterstock_large_verge_medium_landscape.jpg

Building a Future plaque building up along the inner walls
of the arteries of the heart. This plaque narrows the arteries and reduces blood ﬂow to the heart. It can progress without anyone noticing evidence for it for years and what happens there is called coronary artery disease. As it progresses, it leads to lack of oxygen in the body’s cells, can cause chest pain and ﬁnally lead to a heart attack and death. pic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blausen_0259_CoronaryArteryDisease_02.png Wikimedia Commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronary_artery_disease#Treatment

Building a Future In order to treating the coronary artery
disease, besides medical treatment, and changes of lifestyle, many patients have to undergo a surgery. This surgery is performed to relieve the pain and reduce the risk of death. -- In this surgery, plagued arteries have to be widened to improve the blood suppyl to the heart muscle. To perform it, the entire heart is being stopped. --- -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronary_artery_disease#Treatment GIF: http://energetic-medicine.com/wp-content/uploads/Bioresonance-EEG-heartbeat.gif

Building a Future In Open Source, our communities are our
hearts. They nourish the entire body, our projects. Without our communities, Open Source is lost. Narrowing the communities by limiting and restricting their spaces leads to serious problems - for individuals, communities, the products we’re building and ﬁnally Open Source in general. -- -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronary_artery_disease#Treatment GIF: http://energetic-medicine.com/wp-content/uploads/Bioresonance-EEG-heartbeat.gif

Ada Initiative, Ashe Dryden, black girls code, Ethical Code, Girls
who Code, Julie Pagano, Lesbians who Tech, LGBTech, ModelViewCulture, RailsGirls, php women, Shanley Kane, Trans*H4ck Building a Future There are already many initiatives and individuals in Open Source that are working hard on all of this. These people are spending a signiﬁcant amount of time on improving the culture we have in Open Source today. Just to name a few, in alphabetical order: Ada Initiative, Ashe Dryden, black girls code, Ethical Code, Girls who Code, Julie Pagano, Lesbians who Tech, LGBTech, ModelViewCulture, RailsGirls, php women, Trans*H4ck and many more. The least we all should do, is: listen to them. Support their work. Share what they’re saying. And transfer this to the communities we’re all in. ----- We have to widen our communities, welcome and appreciate everyone - to ensure our heart keeps beating. And to ensure that Open Source can have a future. Because -> All individuals & organizations: http://adainitiative.org/ - https://www.gittip.com/ashedryden/ - http://www.blackgirlscode.com/ - http://ethicalco.de/ - http://girlswhocode.com/ - https:// www.gittip.com/juliepagano/ - http://lesbianswhotech.org/ - https://www.lgbtech.org/ - http://modelviewculture.com/ - http://railsgirls.com/ - http://phpwomen.org/ - https://www.gittip.com/shanley/ - http://www.transhack.org/ - ﬁnd more organizations here http://dayssincelasttechincident.com/

Open Source can only have a future if it does
everything to be inclusive. (Ghandi, rephrased) Building a Future “Open Source can only have a future if it does everything to be inclusive.” (Ghandi) ----- ->

Thank you. @ffffux Thank you.

Open Source and the Mayas or: Building a future...

Open Source and the Mayas or: Building a future for Open Source

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