Presented at Libre Application Summit 2018. Full notes: http://lifeofaudrey.com/2018/09/06/3rd-wave.html

1. Creating a Third Wave
of Free and Open
Source Software
Audrey Eschright — Libre Application Summit 2018

2. Audrey Eschright, LAS 2018
Hello!
• Pronouns: she/her
• Started in FOSS ~1997 as a user, began contributing and organizing ~2006
• Founded Calagator, an open source community calendaring platform
• Co-founded Open Source Bridge, annual conference on contribution and
participation
• Publisher of The Recompiler and The Responsible Communication Style Guide
• Lived experience with funding, sustainability, burnout, marginalization

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The world of Free and Open Source Software

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Overview
• 1: Free Software
• 2: Open Source Software
• 3: Modern FOSS
• What’s broken?
• What skills do we need to fix it?

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First wave: 1985

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• Emacs
• GCC
• ls
• grep
• awk
• make
and more!
GNU[’s not UNIX]

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Four Software Freedoms
• The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does
your computing as you wish (freedom 1).Access to the source code is a
precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
(freedom 2).
• The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others
(freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to
benefit from your changes.Access to the source code is a precondition for
this.

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GPL
The license agreements of most software companies try to keep users at
the mercy of those companies. By contrast, our General Public License is
intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. The General
Public License applies to the Free Software Foundation’s software and to
any other program whose authors commit to using it.
You can use it for your programs, too.

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at the same time…
By Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F077948-0006 / Engelbert Reineke / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5471855

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Second wave: 1998

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The introduction of the term "open source software" was a
deliberate effort to make this field of endeavor more
understandable to newcomers and to business, which
was viewed as necessary to its spread to a broader community
of users.The problem with the main earlier label, "free
software," was not its political connotations, but that—to
newcomers—its seeming focus on price is distracting.A term
was needed that focuses on the key issue of source code
and that does not immediately confuse those new to the
concept.

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We discussed the need for a new term due to the confusion
factor.…those new to the term "free software" assume it is
referring to the price. Oldtimers must then launch into an
explanation … "We mean free as in freedom, not free
as in beer." At this point, a discussion on software has
turned into one about the price of an alcoholic beverage.…A
clearer term was needed. No political issues were raised
regarding the free software term; the issue was its lack of
clarity to those new to the concept.

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1. Free Redistribution
2. Source Code
3. Derived Works
4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
7. Distribution of License
8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software
10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral
The Open Source Definition

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But what about

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and GNOME
• Linux/BSD desktop environment — default for many distros
• First project release in 1999
• Started within the GNU Project (Free Software Foundation)
• GNOME Foundation since 2000

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<— compiling my own kernel
because I couldn’t get
the sound drivers to work

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and then
Microsoft vs. open sourceLinux
Apache
MySQL
PHP/Perl
dot com bust and recovery
Google
Facebook
Amazon Web Services
a two-page ad for Firefox in the NYT
GitHub
Red Hat contracts with the US government

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Now

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Computers: everywhere
Software: controls everything
Access to the internet: widespread
‘Learn to code’ efforts: active
Hackable? maybe
Equitable? …

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We build our industry
on open source

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“Users” are everything from
data centers
to software developers
to home desktop users

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So why doesn’t it feel
like we won?

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Whose source?

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GitHub makes starting an
open source project into a
social activity

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What does big corporate
OSS need?
How about the rest of us?

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Sustainability

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Funding

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Burnout

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“Meritocracy” just isn’t

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Diversity

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#TechWontBuildIt

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Is source code still
important?

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Nadia Eghbal
The free software generation had to think about licenses
because they were taking a stance on what they were not
(that is, proprietary software).The GitHub generation takes
this right for granted.They don’t care about permissions.They
default to open.
Open source is so popular today that we don’t think of it as
exceptional anymore.

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1998 fork: f*** you
2018 fork: I want to contribute too

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If code isn’t the most important
unit of engagement…
We’re creating
• software services
• infrastructure
• support systems
• collaboration processes

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How do we create
software together?

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Active, intersectional
inclusion

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Fair compensation
of labor

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Healthy people,
healthy communities

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Effective business
structures

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Participation
agreements

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and licensing…

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Skills for our
software future

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Community
organizing

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Community organizing
• Who’s here? Where do we come from?
• What do we need and want?
• How can we align our goals?
• What resources do we have to work with?
• What’s one step we can take toward those desired outcomes?

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Learn it
• Read about labor history and community organizing
(recommended: Grace Lee Boggs)
• Talk to users, collaborators, people inside and adjacent your
community
• Listen
• Find the common goals

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Maintainership

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Maintainership
• What are we building? Why?
• How do people contribute?
• What can we do to support contributors, new and old?
• How do we create the framework and infrastructure for our projects?
• How will we make decisions? Resolve problems?
• Who will take over when I’m ready to go?

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Learn it
• Find mentors
• Study other communities’ practices
• Assess what is and isn’t working in your own
• Plan for and mentor your successors
• Explore maintainer communities, foundations, platforms like
Tidelift

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Governance

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Governance
• Who owns this software?
• Who has the final say in technical decisions? Community ones?
• Who can decide how the project interacts with other organizations?
• What’s the business plan? (yes, even for non-profits)
• What kind of organization will govern?
• What sort of oversight?

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Learn it
• Read about business and non-profit structures
• Take workshops from people and orgs with different backgrounds
• Talk to fiscal sponsors like the Software Freedom Conservancy and
Software in the Public Interest

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Skills for us to learn
together

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The result
• Projects that are around as long as we need them
• Communities that feed and care for each other
• New people! Rotating duties! Plans for stepping down!
• Respect, visibility, and acknowledgment
• Technology that doesn’t contribute to violence and oppression
• Technology for everyone

61. Audrey Eschright, LAS 2018
Thank you!
• Email: audrey@lifeofaudrey.com
• Twitter: @ameschright
• Mastodon: @audrey@toot.cat
• Read/listen: recompilermag.com