We live in a dark time of pandemic and recession. The world is changing. Is technological freedom something we only worry about in good times, or is freedom still important in times of challenge? If we are still relevant, how can the FLOSS community contribute to moving the world forward?

1. WHAT YOU ARE IN
THE DARK
Andrew Wilson
Virtual SFScon
Bolzano 13-Nov-2020
CC BY 4.0

2. Intro
■ Premise: Crises show what really
matters
■ FOSS really matters
■ Who am I, why do I care?
– Retired from Intel in 2016
– Involved in open source
many ways for 25+ years,
including Linux Foundation
and FSF-E
– Post-retirement, thinking
hard about core philosophy
and ethics of FOSS
– Hoping thoughts might be
useful
CC BY 4.0

3. “CHARACTER IS
WHAT YOU ARE
IN THE DARK…”
Usually attributed to Dwight L. Moody, 19th
century American evangelist
CC BY 4.0By Copyright by Barron Fredricks, NYC.D11791 U.S. Copyright Office. - This image is available from the United States
Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs divisionunder the digital ID cph.3c22752.This tag does not indicate the
copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information.,
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=514244

4. SOME TIMES
MUSSOLINI…
Photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mussolini_biografia.jpg
Public Domain

5. … SOME TIMES
MACHIEVELLI…
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli_by_Santi_di_Tito.jpg
Public Domain

6. … BUT DEFINITELY
DR. EMILIO
LIZARDO!
John Lithgow in “The Adventures of
Buckaroo Banzai,” 1984
Screenshot: Andrew Wilson

7. ONE DEGREE OF SEPARATION
FROM DR. LIZARDO …
And his aerospace company Yoyodyne
Screenshot: Andrew Wilson

8. … to RMS and free
SW!
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims
all copyright interest in the
program `Gnomovision’
(which makes passes at
compilers) written by James
Hacker.
signature of Ty Coon, 1 April 1989
Ty Coon, President of Vice
Photo by Ruben Rodriguez - https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/richard-stallman-at-
libreplanet-2019-2113/, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79484097

9. DARK TIMES
2020
CC BY 4.0

10. GLOBALIZATION
FAILED US
■ China’s fateful initial
non-response
■ Borders suddenly
reappear
■ Migrant workers forced
home
■ Fragile supply chains,
single points of failure
■ Resource hoarding,
profiteering: PPE,
ventilators, masks...
CC BY 4.0

11. BIG TECH
FAILED US
■ Social media crawling
with misinformation
■ Health data silos
■ Apple/Google closed
source contact tracing
– They get marks for
trying
– They get marks for
privacy
– Still my “whipping
boy”
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12. BRIGHT SPOTS
2020
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13. OPEN TECH
SAVED US
■ What we are doing right now!
■ Made possible by open
standards: W3C, IETF, Ethernet,
WiFi, USB…
■ FOSS everywhere: networks, data
centers, devices
■ Why FOSS and open standards?
– Low-friction scaling
■ Free (as in beer), Free (as
in freedom)
– Globalized in a good way
■ Equal access for all
■ Robust “Supply chain”
■ Open source contact tracing
(Singapore, Ireland, LF work)
CC BY 4.0

14. HUGE GAPS
■ Highly-educated and
less-educated
■ Work online versus
hands-on
■ Developed and under-
developed countries
■ Racial and ethnic
inequality
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15. MORE
OPENNESS!
Open
science
Open data
Open AI
Open
Hardware
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16. MORE CONSCIOUSNESS
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Social impact
Economic impact
Public health impact

17. OUR RESOURCES
CC BY 4.0
Ourselves
Our communities
Our social capital

18. NEXT YEAR IN
BOLZANO
Ötzi the Ice Man
Photo: Andrew Wilson

19. THANK YOU.
DISCUSSION!
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20. Contact me
Email: Wilson@canarytrainer.org
LinkedIn: Andy Wilson “open source” “Intel”
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21. BACKUP
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22. “NO MATTER
WHERE YOU GO,
THERE YOU ARE”
Buckaroo Banzai
Photo: http://www.worldwatchonline.com/frame1.htm