Hawthorn Landings

The Next Stage of the Adventure

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:00:00 +0000

I'm excited to say that today marks the beginning of a new adventure for me. While it wasn't an easy decision, I've been offered my dream job and will be departing from Google. The past six years have been incredibly exciting; I've had the opportunity to be a part of an amazing and diverse global community, launch world-first initiatives to involve students in Open Source and to be a part of the company that's one of the greatest success stories in the tech world. Great times all around.

I'll soon be starting a consulting gig with a team that has offices in the Valley and in Costa Rica. Looks like that Costa Rican hacker colony I've been talking about for awhile has come around, and I'm excited to be a part of it. First though, I'm off to speak on FOSS Mentoring at Free Software and Linux Days in Turkey, then accepting an award on behalf of Google from the National Center for Open Source and Education.

The next couple of weeks will be fun and I should be working some vacation in there somewhere. I'm hoping to get some time to write and get the word out on some other great projects I've been working on lately. That and I've got this awesome food dehydrator that's been hiding in its box too long, so I'll be indulging my love of cookery along with composition.

My thanks go out to the wonderful folks in Google's Open Source Programs Office and the rest of the company. It has been a pleasure working with you and I wish you all the best.

For folks wondering where to find me, there's the usual suspects: identi.ca, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Good old fashioned email works great, too.

Let the next stage in the adventure begin!

That Software Ain't Gonna Free Itself

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 03:20:00 +0000

For Ada Lovelace Day, I'd like to express my thanks to and for my friend and colleague, Deb Nicholson. Deb is the membership coordinator for the Free Software Foundation. She has also spent the last several months making the track on increasing women's participation in Free Software at Libre Planet a reality.

Deb initially brought a group of women together to discuss the topic last September, which brings me to my first reason why Deb is awesome: she gets stuff done. She got an initial discussion going, then reached out to get more people involved, and held regular IRC meetings to collaboratively plan the conference program with the community. She actually got all of us together in Boston. She even made sure all the women who attended got together for dinner. Best part - a few of the women who came to Thai were invited by a friend so they could geek out and learn more about Free Software.

Did I mention that in addition to making all of this happen, she also gave an awesome talk? I'm really looking forward to putting up a pointer to the video from Deb's talk; she did an excellent job dismissing myths around women in Free Software and laying out the ground rules for effective communication in our discussion. She dealt well with ineffective audience participation; she stood up and asked an individual whose communication was rude and derailing to leave the room. Her response took real courage and I was incredibly proud of her strong and respectful stance in what was a tense situation.

She also helped the volunteers whenever she could, helped hand out lunches, wrangled speakers, made sure we always had directions and acted as an awesome emissary for the FSF.

And did I mention that when not working on creating things happen in real life, Deb also hacks on GNU Social?

As a wise man once said, "software ain't gonna free itself." Deb is one of those amazing people that helps make FOSS possible. She's one of my heroes.

I will be posting more notes from Libre Planet later this week. Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

Heading to SIGCSE 2010

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:57:00 +0000

Tomorrow, Summer of Code opens for 2010. Going to be an action packed week; we're taking applications from mentoring organizations in less than 24 hours. Should be an exciting sixth year for the program.

Tuesday, I'm heading out to the city of Laverne & Shirley for SIGCSE 2010. It'll be my second trip to this conference for Computer Science educators, and I'm really looking forward to speaking at the Humanitarian FOSS Project Symposium on Wednesday. Hal Abelson will be keynoting at the Symposium, as well. It's a day not to be missed, so if you happen to be in and around Milwaukee, do stop by and attend the sessions.

I'll also be giving a presentation on Google's Open Source student programs with Cat Allman on Friday. She and I will be at Google's booth throughout the event, so if stop by and introduce yourself.

I'll be regularly updating identi.ca and Twitter while conferencing, so check for my updates from SIGCSE there. Time to go pack some very warm clothing.

Yarr! Hoist Yer Anchors to Get 'Em While They'e Even Younger

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:41:00 +0000

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day and Software Freedom Day!

I'm back in Boston once again, listening to Walter Bender from Sugar Labs talk about the platform and more specifically Turtle Art. For those not familiar, Turtle Art is an activity for the Sugar platform with a Logo-inspired graphical "turtle" that draws colorful art based on Scratch-like snap-together visual programming elements. Way to get them while they're even even younger! Not that my great and abiding love of turtles makes me biased in this matter.

Hrm. Giant Tortoise. Darwin. FOSS. Coincidence? I think not!

A member of the audience just asked about involving High School students and Walter pointed out that High School students are already Sugar developers and that their Sugar on a Stick initiative is spearheaded by a High School student. Walter and I had touched on this matter earlier this morning during coffee, as a few members of the Sugar team had approached me about participating in the Google Highly Open Participation Contest this year. (Yes, yes, we're getting a new name. Suggestions welcome!) I think many people don't realize how many pre-university students are already involved in Free and Open Source software. In fact, in talking to Titus during the first GHOP, many people have to be convinced that High School students are actually capable contributors to FOSS. Be skeptical no more folks - Walter's success stories about young people and Sugar are proof enough, as are the 1,000 tasks completed by GHOP students during the first contest. Not to mention the whole GNU Generation effort, spearheaded by former GHOP student now Free Software Foundation Intern Max Shinn.

So no doubt you're now thinking, how long until I can visit a tropical island, bond with Giant Tortoises or the odd Sea Turtle and have a pina colada, celebrating Talk like a Pirate Day in style. Swing 'round yer keel and think ye on treasures more near to hand; tasty grog, crystal waters and testudine adventures await ye if you help more pre-university students involved in Free and Open Source Software.

You may have heard that we're planning to running GHOP once again this year, but we need help to make this happen. Melange, the code base that powers Google's Open Source Programs student site, is nearly there for us to open up the contest in early December, but we're not quite there yet. Specifically, we need folks to test the all the great work done by one of our Melange Summer of Code students, kick the tires, file bugs, write patches to fix those bugs, and to document the system for all users. Knowledgeable folks are standing by in #melange on Freenode to help you get started on our To Do list. You can also post to the thread with IRC logs and notes from our latest status meeting calling for volunteers.

I can promise my eternal gratitude for your help. I can also promise t-shirts. I will buy you beer when I see you at a conference.

Report from Foo Camp Day 2

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 07:22:00 +0000

I kicked off the morning by making a tough call: "Let's Help Washington DC" or "Education Sucks" or "Open vs. Government Works." I ended up heading to the last mentioned session since Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy for the Smithsonian Institution was one of the session leaders. Having visited the Smithsonian numerous times, I was curious to see what challenges they faced in opening their collections.

Lots of good stuff discussed here. Joi Ito touched on the CC0 initiative, an effort to allow creators to easily give up all rights to their works, which is especially useful when these creators aren't interested in the copyright protections imposed on them by law. Joi also touched on RDFa and its importance in easily adding and allowing for the extraction of licensing and copyright metadata from online content.

What really surprised me in this session and in a few conversations with other folks at museums and libraries over lunch was the repeated theme that public institutions seem to harbor a kind of fear of making their works more accessible and open. I suppose it's understandable that a body of people dedicated to conserving physical objects might carry that same conservatism to their view of technology. However, coming from the world of Silicon Valley it's just strange to me that anyone would think that a digital offering would somehow supplant a real life experience of that object. The most common thing I hear about tech conferences is how great it is to meet the people you only know from email or IRC in real life.

For me the question of whether or not putting photos on the web of a currently displayed collection is much like taking a look at items in a catalog: seeing photos of a particular art print doesn't make me less likely to go to a store and purchase it, just as seeing a photo of a particular painting doesn't make me less likely to visit the museum displaying it. If anything, I feel more motivation to visit in person and, when possible, repeatedly; it's a pleasure to reexperience a particular work and to recapture the feeling of awe and wonder I felt the first time I viewed it. Trust me, I will never pass up a chance to visit the statue of El Cid at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco or the Hall of Minerals at the Smithsonian just because I can take a look at Flickr and see much of what's contained therein on the web - I'll feel nostalgic and further cement my resolve to get myself back to the premises in spite of my busy schedule.

I wonder if a useful argument could be made by analyzing data from repeat visitors or member patrons. Intuitively it would seems that those most likely to not visit and "consume" a particular collection would be those who had already seen it, but clearly that's not the case for me and many others. These folks might provide useful data points about what motivates patrons to experience physical objects in person vs. online.

There's also a genuine fear that people will somehow take the offerings of public institutions and use the work they made public to make money without contributing back to the institution. I think the experience of the Apache Software Foundation in terms of the amount of code contributions they receive even though the Apache License does not require code release in the same fashion as the GPL is instructive here. Shelley Bernstein, Chief of Technology at the Brooklyn Museum, mentioned that they've created a business model around sliding scale fees for high resolution images of pieces curated by the museum. It's not only exciting to see a real world overcoming of the aforementioned fears but to see that the museum continues its mission as a steward of the public by offering the images at a substantially reduced cost to those looking to use these works for public good causes.

Headed to another session generally on what happens when a technical project provides a much needed social benefit but does not make money. Many thanks to Jim Fruchterman from Benetech for suggesting the session, as I think it's an incredibly important topic as society has more strongly encouraged non-profits and social justice organizations to take an entrepreneurial approach to their efforts. A few great points emerged from this session, most notably:

If possible, start your social project as a for-profit vs. as a non-profit. It is easier to move from for-profit to non-profit status, costs for setting up a non-profit are very high, proving that work for a non-profit is directly related to its mission can be difficult and the wait to get non-profit status is quite long.

The government procurement process is at best difficult and at worst horribly broken. There's an entire culture and language to government procurement that can bar new entrants entirely when they're unfamiliar with the process. If you're interested in getting government funding, Steve Ressler, Founder of GovLoop, suggests finding an entity with experience in getting a particular type of grant and asking for their mentorship in preparing your grant application. Finding ways in which your group can add value to your would-be mentors efforts is the best way to start this conversation.

"Free is expensive." Getting contributors to work for free on your development project can actually be more costly than hiring people to do the work for you. People volunteering their time drop out when more pressing needs arise, potentially leaving you in a worse position than if the work had not been started at all. Jim made the great point that the most successful open source foundations and projects typically have some sort of corporate backing to fund the core development team while still making effective use of community contributions, citing Apache and Mozilla.

It came up that one of the best ways to keep volunteers and other passionate individuals inspired is to "show" them the fruits of their work, e.g. sending an individual to see the cleaner water in a river recently cleaned due to their work on an EPA grant. The projects Jim works on actually employ a Product Manager whose job function is to motivate developers to contribute to the project, helping them see how scratching their own itch benefits the wider world and in some cases how the benefit to the wider world outweighs their desire to scratch their own itch. These folks tell the story to developers in a way that makes sense to them and help those in the non-profit world better articulate their needs to techies. I'd just call these people Community Managers.

Post lunch headed to a session on Opening Government Geospatial Data which morphed into a more general discussion of what data sets the federal government should open, as well as how it should be structured and licensed. The general idea was to create an immediate win in the open government data space and provide a model for state and local governments when opening their data. The best result to come from this session was to create a mechanism similar to a trackback URL for opened government data sets to measure how and where they're being used post-release. Paul Rademacher posed a truly great question: "What data is there to release?" Given there's little to no metadata available for government data sets, just knowing what's out there is incredibly hard.

Some suggestions for opening data sets included:

Post office and address data

Voter registration and voting demographics

Census data

GIS and other geospatial data at higher resolution for non-US NGOs

I'd be curious to know what a wider audience thinks would be the best data sets for the government to release, particularly at the state and local level since this conversation focused primarily on Federal data. I'd like to see more data around the National and State Parks, particularly in the areas of resource management and park closures. If parks are getting closed for lack of funding for maintenance, I see a real opportunity for citizen volunteerism that would yield immediate, measurable results.

Post lunch I had a hard time deciding between two awesome sessions, NerdCraft by Beth Goza from T-Mobile and Gavin Starks, Founder and CEO of AMEE, on Avoiding Mass Extinctions. As I'd spent some quality time with Beth last night talking about how to incentivize developers and making cool things, all over paper sculpture making, I decided to indulge my musings on the Apocalypse and head to Gavin's session. A few key take aways:

A carbon trading market is, at best, a contentious solution to the climate crisis. Gavin's company is working to make the measurement of carbon usage and the trading process for carbon credits more useful transparent.

The greatest impact the individual can have on climate change is to go vegetarian and give up flying. I'm not sure much of the geek community is ready to do either, which leads me to wonder why we'd expect anyone else to do so.

If every woman on earth only had one child, we'd halve the population and thereby greatly reduce carbon consumption in only 50 years.

Last but not least, everyone discussed rather uncomfortably the idea that what's really needed is a benevolent dictator to simply order people to make change. Not everyone agreed with this idea. I know folks don't like this idea, but I can't imagine the world's governments working together effectively as a committee to solve this problem. And people aren't going to change without the immediate force of a crisis - think constant chaotic storms, for example - or the force of a dictatorship. I know I won't and I think about this topics pretty regularly.

Following this, erm, uplifting discussion, I decided I needed something a bit more focused on making positive change in the here and now. Danny Sullivan's session on dealing with email overload was very useful - see his 8 tips for Dealing with Email Overload article. It amazes me how many of us feel terribly guilty for not responding to everything and worry about how people will feel if we don't respond. We all agreed it takes some time to educate your contacts about what to expect regarding response times and using an auto-responder to do that or to point to a personal FAQ that answers most of the "please help me" questions one receives. Bottom line: don't feel bad for not responding and if someone needs you that badly, they will email again.

I headed for dinner, where I proceeded to eat a fair sized portion of some delicious roast beef while contemplating my next business trip to Washington D.C. for the upcoming Gov 2.0 Summit. Take that mass extinction! Dinner conversation was wonderful, ranging from topics like cultural expectations around communication with Jason Holt from Google Earth recommending Kiss, Bow or Shake Hands. Adding that to the ever growing list of things to read.

Tony Stubblebine was kind enough to recap his Happiness Hacks session, as well. Quick and dirty: be OK with saying no, manage your email and other inputs effectively and seek positive reinforcement for your work. Tony has even developed software that updates his team's IRC channel each time a task is completed so there's immediate peer recognition at CrowdVine for getting stuff done.

As I'd hoped, caught up with Adam Hyde and talked a bit about models for creating FLOSS literature. Adam's idea for making materials published by the FLOSS Manuals team most useful to FLOSS consultants by allowing them to customize the data in the manual for use with specific clients is fantastic. We're also starting to conspire about a book sprint for Summer of Code and are talking about organizing it for the weekend before the summit (October 17th and 18th for the sprint) and handing it out to everyone at the summit (October 24th and 25th). Six mentors needed, mix of newbie and experience. If you're interested in making this documentation for the program happen, you know where to find me - sound off. :)

Post dinner, headed for Ignite Foo. I really like the Ignite format and appreciate it when folks eschew slides completely. Highly varied topics, including:

Bill Janeway comparing the Depression era financial crisis to today's financial crisis. Some quite interesting parallels.
Sarah Milstein on how to crave kale. Nom nom. I like kale.
Kevin Marks on "Stop saying real time when you mean flow." E.g. Twitter is not real time. Real time means code fails and something painful happens. Kthxbai.
Shel Kaphan treated us to hacking the endocrine system and talked about how various foods affect us among other things.
Andrew Odewahn gave us a glimpse of the US Senate's social graph, 1991-now, much of the data coming out of analyzing the US Senate's Facebook connections. The graph of votes along party lines over time were fascinating.
Kim Rachmeler treated us to a view of happiness. We go after the wrong things to make us happy and we are only temporarily happy when we get what we want; this is known as the Hedonic Treadmill. Best insight: our brains work against making us happy all of the time; our inner judge stops us from trying new things. Think of mistakes as exploring the landscape of possibilities.
Danny Sullivan on "What the Hell is Real Time Search Anyway?" Per Danny, real time search is finding things like microblogging content or Facebook or FriendFeed. Too bad for all the walled gardens and their impact on sharing.

Following the Ignite talks we moved on to an amazing musical performance by Zoe Keating playing the electric cello. Sadly no MC Frontalot. Was planning to head to bed but got sucked into yet another game of Werewolf.

Phew. Awesome but long day. Time to head to bed.

Feelin' Foo-y

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:48:00 +0000

Greetings from Sebastopol, California!

I'm heading for Foo Camp 2009 in about an hour, and the 3+ hour drive up here gave me some time to clear my head and ponder the past few months. It's been the usual mix of Summer of Code and conference talks (Open Source Bridge, FISL and OSCON most notably) and on the less usual side, a new love and a move to a much calmer, more pleasant and larger living space. My house has always been the unofficial hacker hotel, but now Hawthorn Landings boasts a dedicated guest room, a dozen restaurants of all cuisine types within 2 minutes walk and a Farmer's Market 3 blocks away every Saturday. Two of the local places serve Mediterranean food and there's also a chocolatier, so I'm in heaven.

I've been making much less use of this blog than I used to and even spending a bit less time using Facebook, identi.ca and Twitter, though as things are getting a bit less busy I'm sure that's going to change. For folks used to keeping up with me via this site, better to look for me on one of those social networks. If you're not to be dragged into the Mafia Wars and microblogging fray, then you can check the side bar for more regular updates.

On the education front, a few exciting developments. My friend John Britton has started work with Peer 2 Peer University, a company creating online peer learning communities. They were recently featured in Fast Company and I'm excited to see yet another example of people working to open education through web collaboration. I'm keeping my eye on these folks, and you may be interested in John's latest blog post on the applications they received for their first phase of course development. Copyright for Educators has particularly piqued my interest.

My friend Josh Gay continues his efforts to revolutionize the textbook during his day job at CK-12. They're providing free textbooks to various primary and secondary schools in the United States, and recently completed some work with the state of California around qualifying free digital textbooks. Check out this latest post on the non-profit's blog for more details, and the article on Ending the Education Monopoly is quite good, too.

I haven't been nearly as active in the TeachingOpenSource.org community as I'd like to be these past few months, but others have some great work well underway. Of particular note, several people are collaborating on developing a textbook for use in college classrooms that will help students and professors better participate in Open Source projects. Think Producing Open Source for the would-be project member instead of the would-be project founder. For more on that, check out the mailing list or, better yet, attend the Teaching Open Source Summit.

On the Summer of Code front, final results for 2009 were announced on Wednesday. Our best year yet with 85% of students passing. I'm so proud to be a part of this global community and to have been a part of growing it over the past four years out of its five year history. We'll be holding our annual mentor summit at Google at the end of October, and I'm kicking around the idea of asking the FLOSS Manuals team to attend and facilitate a book sprint to create the ultimate guide to the program. I think the most interesting part of the program is the mentoring model and I'd like to see all of the disparate how to documentation and words of wisdom coalesce into a text that's useful beyond the scope of the program for communities of all kinds who want to do their own mentoring initiatives. Fortunately, Adam Hyde will be at Foo Camp so we can riff on this idea a bit more this weekend.

Finally, I've never gotten a chance to post notes from our Summer of Code BoF at Open Source Bridge. Fortunately, my friend Jonathan Leto posted some notes so I'm going to salve my procrastination guilt by pointing you there. The major point that stuck in my mind was the need for a buddy system for newer folks, pairing them with experienced mentors so they know what to expect, what kind of performance is reasonable, and how to overcome common roadblocks. While I'm quite excited about creating a Guide to Summer of Code I know nothing beats a good chat in IRC or, better yet, over coffee or beer. Thoughts from the community on this idea? Anyone want to volunteer to mentor our mentors?

Speaking off coffee and beer, I'm off to get ready and head to O'Reilly HQ. Fabulous Foo time!

Talks at FISL 10

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:37:00 +0000

Greetings from Porto Alegre, Brasil!

It's my second trip to Brasil and I'm already having a blast. Heading for dinner soon with Nanda, but just a quick update before I head out the door. I'm giving two talks at FISL 10: The 10th International Forum on Free Software. Tomorrow, I'll be talking about Google Summer of Code and hope that any all GSoCers at FISL will turn up and share their experiences with the audience. Talk starts at 13:00. On Friday, I'll be talking about Community Management Basics, and once again hope everyone can come by and share their collective wisdom.

We're also planning a GSoCer meetup after my talk tomorrow, and you can join the planning discussion in this thread.

I owe the world a write up on the Summer of Code BoF at Open Source Bridge. It will happen, really. I have notes.

Bridging the Gaps

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:13:00 +0000

You know it's bad when your Mom bothers you to update your blog.

Doings in May included a return to BSDCan to discuss Open Source for Newbies along with the fabulous Cat Allman. We tailored the talk to discuss how more experienced contributors can make communities most welcoming for new folks and got great feedback from the audience, which will be integrating into the presentation.

As always, we're looking for useful advice on helping newbies get involved, so if you want to share your thoughts, please find one of us. We'll be speaking at Open Source Bridge in Portland on the opening day of the conference, so if you happen to find yourself in the Silicon Forest please pop by to see us. I'm particularly excited about Open Source Bridge given the event's focus on Open Source Citizenship. I'm looking forward to hearing more from my fellow attendees about what this citizenship looks like to them and exploring the concept of what being a part of the "community" means in terms that are a bit less, well, fuzzy.

I'll be denting extensively from the conference if you're interested in hearing more about these conversations.

I also spent two weeks on holiday in the Netherlands and Los Angeles. Highlights included the orange and white tabby that followed me on my walk through the Dutch countryside, late night partying with a bunch of Aramco Brats and my conversation on photos with the kindly elder Dutchman who parked beside me at a cafe in Amsterdam while I was reading Pratchett's Equal Rites:

Him: So you're on your fourth visit to Holland?

Me: Yes, it's one of my favorite places on Earth. I'm heading to Keukenhof tomorrow and plan to walk through a field of tulips.

Him: Have you taken many photos on your trip?

Me: No. I don't really take photos. I prefer my memories.

Him: Wow. You don't hear many people say that these days. Good for you.

We enjoyed a cup of tea and other philosophical musings before he continued his day elsewhere. Have I mentioned how much I love the Dutch? And if you're wondering why I never post photos from my adventures, well, now you know.

Please take note that if you do go to Keukenhof, you don't really get to walk through a field of tulips. You do, however, get to wander through a truly spectacular hedge maze.

And.... Hi Mom! (My only^H^H^H^H most loyal reader.... :)

Penguin Day San Francisco: This Saturday (and before)

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:48:00 +0000

This Saturday, I'm heading to Penguin Day San Francisco. This will be my third Penguin Day, and this time I'll be leading two discussion sessions: Introduction to Free and Open Source Software and Learnings from Summers of Code. Other awesome topics include CiviCRM, Introductory and Advanced Level sessions on Drupal and Joomla!, and even Introduction to Blogging led by our fabulous facilitator, Allen "Gunner" Gunn of Aspiration fame. Should be a truly awesome way to spend a Saturday in the City by the Bay.

Performed a true drive by at today's MySQL Camp, a.k.a. the MySQL Conference Unconference. I'm hoping to get a chance to stop by the camp tomorrow since it'sso close to my house. We had an half and half mix of experienced and newbie in the small audience, so we opted for group discussion of Open Source for Newbies over lecture format. Communication sans slides ftw!

The number one question: how do I use Open Source to help further my career prospects. For those wondering more about this question, take a look at How to Put Free Software Experience on Your Resume; it's aimed primarily at newly graduating students, but it's useful for all takers. Folks were also interested in good resources to learning more about software licensing. Wikipedia is a good place to start for an overview of each of the Free Software Licenses and Open Source Initiative Approved Licenses. I'd also recommend Intellectual Property and Open Source: A Practical Guide to Protecting Code by Van Lindberg. Always nice when you can get a FLOSS programmer writing about matters FLOSS legal.

Open Everything NYC this past weekend rocked. Highlight: Schuyler Erle on RapidSMS. I covered a basic model for folks to get involved with social causes in their local neighborhoods in my talk Common Sense. As conference organizer John Britton put it best "It's great that you're all here. It's even more important that you go out and do something."

Amen.

8 days, three unconferences. Wow.

New York City was, as usual, lovely. Too densely populated for my long-term tastes, but the chance to catch up with friends in between Summer of Code madness was quite welcome. City Island in the Bronx - beautiful, just beautiful. Even saw a falcon on the drive over the rough bridge onto the island. The park two blocks from my friend's house has giant bronze seals and an overly smiley dolphin, but looked like a great place to play when you're a wee one. And I finally got to eat at Dinosaur Barbeque.

Life is good.

Open Everything NYC: Tomorrow at UNICEF HQ

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:24:00 +0000

For those not familiar with Open Everything events, think ultimate unconference. These gatherings focus on, well, everything open, from what that terms means to each participant to how principles of openness impact art, media, public policy, science and, yes, even tech. I'll be speaking at the closing session of Open Everything New York City, discussing what open means to me and my thoughts on where applying the principles of openness and transparency have the greatest potential to improve our world, short and long-term.

If you're heading to the conference, take a look at the Open Everything NYC wiki. At time of writing, it's a bit spartan. Help fix that: add information on public transportation, nearby restaurants or coffee shops, or anything else you think will be helpful. Already know what you want to talk about tomorrow or have a burning question you'd like to explore with your fellow attendees? Add your comments to the suggested sessions page. The canonical tag for the event is openeverything, or #openeverything for all you microbloggers. The organizers are hoping to see the event become a trending topic on identi.ca and Twitter, so make sure to tag your dents and tweets.

Can't join us at UNICEF HQ tomorrow? The best part of Open Everything is that everyone is welcome and encouraged to host their own events in their own communities. You can find resources to plan on the Open Everything wiki, including information from past event organizers and participants. If you're looking for inspiration, start on the wiki and feel free to contact folks for more details.

Leaving for Las Vegas

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 00:07:00 +0000

In case you missed the announcement, I'll be speaking at Joomla! Day Las Vegas tomorrow. The good folks from Aspiration Tech will be facilitating this day of unconferencing on all things Joomla!. I'm looking forward to seeing old friends, making new ones and talking about the fine arts of community management.

I'll be Denting and Tweeting from the conference, so if your curious about the events of the weekend, check in on me on identi.ca and Twitter.

I'm so excited to be heading out, I can almost forget how poorly I do in desert environs. Wish me luck and hope to see some of you there!

More lolcats

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 03:40:00 +0000

Made. Of. Awesome.

GSD & LOLCATS

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 03:17:00 +0000

Tonight is devoted to GSD: clearing the old inbox, catching up on reading articles, etc. Got a chance to send around feedback to all the folks who put up Help Wanted listings at teachingopensource.org. Life is good.

This afternoon I suggested folks should create Summer of Code lolcats. Here are a few that folks have done.

These. Are. Awesome. Moar please.

Getting Started in Open Source: You Don't Need to be a Rocket Scientist

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:55:00 +0000

(Ed. Note: I'm spending more time microblogging these days than updating Hawthorn Landings, so if you're interested in what's going on in the wonderful world of LH and the Federal Republic of Northern California, you may want to subscribe to my notices on identi.ca or follow me on Twitter.)

Last weekend, I attended the birthday celebration of a dear friend, Angie Wolff. Most of the crowd were techie types, spending their day jobs thinking about genetics, scientific instruments and space. Late in the evening, we gathered around an outdoor fire pit for conversation, enjoying the night chill and the heat from the tower of flaming oak wood equally. I couldn't help but think that such gatherings have happened in much the same form since man first walked the earth.

The gentleman to my right worked for the local arm of NASA, and we wandered across topics like debris in space and government spending on the space program. Fascinating stuff all around, though I admit to delivering a disgusted rant about the fact that human beings can't seem to keep their waste production confined to this planet. It's bad enough down here, thank you very much. Eventually, the conversation lagged a bit and he asked the eternal question: "So, are you an engineer?"

I laughed and responded, "No. In fact, I have a degree in Medieval English Literature." He blinked. I'm used to this sort of surprise. "But," he said, "you ask all the right questions. You talk like an engineer. You think like an engineer." "Well," I countered, "I suppose that's because I spend so much time around them."

This weekend, my thoughts turn to the fifth Google Summer of Code^TM, and the topic of this post. Each year, #gsoc on Freenode fills with new nicks, and it's been wonderful this year to watch the community band together to welcome our newcomers, answer their questions and guide them as they begin to explore the world of FLOSS. Another year, another GSoC, and the same set of questions: "Will I get accepted?" "What are my chances?" "I am really excited about Open Source, but I don't think I know enough. Should I even bother applying?" "What if I'm a first year student in Computer Science, is that enough experience?" "What if I have been programming for years, but I have never done anything Open Source? Should I give up now?"

To those who are feeling intimidated, I cannot say this too many times. Go ahead and apply. The worst you can do is not be accepted. Even if you fall flat on your face, you are still moving forward. Even if you are not accepted into the program, you will still get the chance to learn more about some exciting projects and to get to know some of the folks who make those projects happen. You may not work on their code base in the next few months, but who knows when you'll find they provide an itch that you just have to scratch.

The pep talk I wrote two years ago holds equally true today. Go read it if you need some reassurance. Take a break from Programmer Insecurity.

As of tomorrow, I will have worked for Google's Open Source Programs Office for three years. When I got started, I'd written precisely zero lines of code. As of today, I've written just under one thousand, but nothing that was ever particularly useful — mostly just "Hello World!" type stuff — and I've never submitted a patch nor designed an elegant file system. I know my work, both for Google and in my volunteer time to the community, has had a useful impact, even though I don't write code. Consider how "little experience" I have and then ask yourself if you should really be wasting cycles worrying about how little you have to offer instead of focusing on how much you have the opportunity to learn.

And for those of us who know that all that glitters is not only code, there are many avenues of contribution to the Free and Open Source Software world that have nothing to do with fixing bugs. I'll be talking more about tips for newbies in the coming weeks. Assuming I can tear myself away from Denting and Tweeting.

Paying It Forward

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:19:00 +0000

Once upon a time, a friend of mine told me to crank up the tunes in his living room. I wandered over to his desk, pressed the space bar on the keyboard and was presented with this utterly unfamiliar foot thing floating around the screen. After asking "Um, what the hell is this?," my buddy proceeded to tell me all about what Open Source software is, why people write it, why people use it, and why I could still play music files in this then foreign environment. Life was good. I also got the sense that this whole Open Source thing was for coders only. I didn't think much about it for a long time, other than being very excited that programmers were thinking about their work along ethical lines and viewing the tools they create as a form of speech. Such is the way the world is changed.

Seven years later, I was chatting with some folks at SIGCSE when a text message came through from this same friend. "Just heard you on the lottalinuxlinks podcast. Nice interview." Clearly, a lot can change in seven years. Thanks for the kind words Nathan, and thanks for that early lesson. I'm proud I could pay it forward.

I'm curious to know what folks think of the podcast, so let me know. I have a few more to promote Summer of Code coming up in the next few weeks, so all feedback appreciated.

And while we're at it, feedback on this video interview with Linux Magazin Online from FOSDEM also welcome. The video of my talk should be posted soon. Eh, why not give my official conference press interview a read, too.

Life is good.

Notes from SIGCSE 2009 & Barriers to Adoption of FLOSS in the Curriculum

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 03:47:00 +0000

First of all, Chattanooga, Tennessee is a lovely place to visit. Should you find yourself there, lodge at the Stone Fort Inn. The service is impeccable, the property exquisite, the prices reasonable and the breakfasts sumptuous. The claw foot tub and balcony hot tub experience is also not to be missed. The Tennessee Aquarium was recently declared #1 in the United States and with good reason; I touched a manta ray, shark and sturgeon for the first time at the conference reception, and they have an entire exhibit dedicated to turtles. Not that my deep and abiding love of turtles inspires any bias in my assessment, mind you.

But on from the business of hospitality and marine biology to the business of computing. Whilst in Chattanooga, I had the privilege of speaking at SIGCSE 2009, the ACM's 40th Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. I joined several folks from industry and academia at the Free and Open Source Software Symposium on Wednesday, where the theme was integrating FOSS into the Undergraduate Computing Curriculum. I learned a great deal from the educators present about how they are using FOSS in their curriculum and several folks presented on courses they've developed using FOSS software as the basis for the concepts they were teaching, e.g. version control systems. Among other initiatives discussed, It was particularly inspiring to meet up with professors who encourage their students devote their time to humanitarian projects such as OpenMRS and Sahana. My fellow panelist, Stormy Peters, sent out notes via Twitter (@storming) during the sessions, and I'd recommend taking a look at her Tweets for more details.

So with all the great work being done by well known folks like Oregon State University's Open Source Labs or some of the less well known (but ought to be better known) efforts underway at institutions like Connecticut College, Trinity College and Wesleyan University - and even in my own Silicon Valley backyard at San Jose State* - why aren't we seeing more use of FOSS in (higher) education? When talking to the professors in several sessions, most of their top students are already involved in FOSS projects, submitting patches or sometimes full committers. FOSS adoption by business is ever increasing, particularly in these troubled economic times. Certainly any institution, be it wider academia or a university, will change more slowly than industry, but it seems only natural that FOSS code and tools would be the best choice for teaching and use in the classroom, especially given the potential for cost savings. So why aren't we seeing more of this happen and with all haste?

The most valuable part of SIGCSE for me was understanding from educators what their pain points are in adopting FOSS in their classroom. A few of the main ones include:

Obtaining Tenure:
Encouraging students to participate in FOSS development requires some degree of community participation on the part of the educator, at the very least so they can impart the social lessons that prepare students for the cultural aspects of FOSS. Many would be most happy to do so, but contributions to these projects are not considered admissible to the body of work required to obtain tenure. Tenure review committees also lack the domain expertise to judge whether a particular code base contributed to a FOSS projects is a substantial achievement or a less significant patch. And, of course, contributions of source code are not considered publication, whether or not they meet the stated objective of publication - the advancement of Computer Science.

Curriculum Challenges:
Staying abreast of all the changes in the technical world is difficult enough for those of us who work day to day in the high tech industry. Imagine keeping up with these trends in addition to the requirements to publish academic papers, remain current on pedagogical trends, serve on various committees, and actually teach courses. Needless to say educators are left with little time to refresh their curricula with FOSS examples or to create entirely new curricula integrating FOSS into their pedagogy. Consider also that FOSS software is usually released more often than its proprietary counterparts and his more rapidly changing landscape can be a deterrent for time strapped teachers. A few folks noted that proprietary software vendors often provide a well written, useful and oft-refreshed curricula to them.

It's also worth noting that there's quite a bit of Open Courseware and FOSS code out there targeted at educators, such as Rice University's Connexions site, MIT's Open Course Ware and the Respository for Open Software Education, but not everyone is aware of these resources. Even beyond these more well known resources, the internet is chock full of information to learn about FOSS and computing. However, vetting these resources to ensure quality content is time consuming and not something that every professor is well suited to do in every technical area. Keeping to the known is a lower time investment. I've also heard folks mention that there's need to educate educators around content licensing in general, and some who well understand content licensing still hesitate to use courseware that is Creative Commons licensed for educational use but restricted for commercial use given the for-profit nature of their academic institutions.

I haven't yet mentioned the need to meet Administration curriculum requirements for each course, some of which don't recognize FOSS as a viable mode for illustrating concepts in computing. I know how counterintuitive this fact must seem given the number of universities that were the birthplaces of FOSS - my alma mater anyone? - but it is what it is. Persuading school administrations to change curriculum requirements is time consuming at best and not a battle everyone would care to fight. Particularly when they're seeking tenure, meaning their time is likely focused on publishing rather than challenging status quo.

Declining Enrollments:
Many folks I spoke with lamented both the shrinking numbers of student enrolling in Computer Science and the lack of preparation their students have for tackling the discipline. Faced with shrinking numbers of CS majors and corresponding decline in revenue, expending the resources to innovate the CS curriculum period, let alone in this 'radical' way that is FOSS, can be hard to justify at the institutional level. Everyone seems to agree that these curriculum innovations would be a useful catalyst to stimulate interest in Computer Science, but for now it's a chicken and egg problem.

Education for Educators:
This topic was quite the hot button for folks teaching computing to pre-university students, but the principle holds true for higher education, as well. Not everyone knows what FOSS is, why it's useful or why they ought to choose to use it in their courses as opposed to proprietary software. Once you have a teacher convinced that FOSS is the right choice, they may have no clue how to choose which code base to use as a teaching tool or even a good understanding of a particular operating system, tool, etc. While we in the FOSS world are used to a "figure it out yourself" mentality, that's at best not the modus operandi and at worst the antithesis of the academic world. Folks enmeshed in this structured learning environment, where lectures are the order of the day can find the unstructured environment of FOSS both unfamiliar and intimidating, no matter how brilliant they are.

Particularly on this last point, though on all points, I think we in the FOSS community have an amazing opportunity to provide help to the academic community around these issues. Local LUGs can hold workshops to train teachers, FOSS developers would make excellent invited speakers for classes, etc., etc. If you're passionate about this topic, consider volunteering to be a guest lecturer at your local school. I think Community Colleges and Trade/Vocational schools are our best bet for a first port of call. Bonus points if you have the time, energy and school board support to facilitate an after school computer club for younger students.

Many thanks to Ralph Morelli and his fellow Symposium chairs, for inviting me to take part in the panel, to my fellow participants for sharing their stories, and to all the educators who took the time to share their achievements and challenges with me this past week. Many thanks also to Greg Dekoningsberg for the riffing over coffee on these same topics. Check out his post-symposium blog post while you're at it. And finally, thanks to Stormy for suggesting to Ralph that I'd make a good addition to the Symposium; I'm grateful for the connections that I formed due to my attendance.

* This list is just a smattering of all the great work I heard about during the symposium. For more, check out the papers presented.

This is as it should be....

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 23:03:00 +0000

Greetings from the lovely city of Brussels. I love FOSDEM. If I have my way, this conference will be the one I attend every year from here on out, even if I'm unable to make it to any others.

As with all conferences I attend, I'm mostly hitting the hallway track. Between press interviews, meetings and catching up with old friends, there just isn't much time to attend sessions. Ah well, such is life.

I did, however, manage to get one talk in today - Mark Surman's keynote presentation on the future of openness. From discussing the history of browser development to citing examples like Wikipedia and Flickr's enormous collection of Creative Commons licensed photo content, Mark made a compelling argument that we have, in many ways, already achieved a fundamental social paradigm shift towards openness and freedom; users now enjoy - and can come to expect - a world in which free and open knowledge and culture are an option. The next question becomes how to make these choices the default rather than successful anomalies which have proved to a wider world that the principles the FLOSS community embraces are applicable to issues vastly beyond source code.

As FLOSS has become mainstream and is seen as a commercially viable procurement option and/or business model, those outside of this realm who wish to flatten hierarchical social structures will continue to look to models generated in the FLOSS world as templates for reorganizing traditional/institutional power structures and modes of interaction. We already are the change we wish to see in the world, and those outside our sphere will increasingly look to us as a "map" to realizing their goals for free and open education, society, culture, and so on.

And there's the rub, methinks. Inherently, the FLOSS model is not necessarily actually about inclusiveness. We collectively subscribe to the notion of inclusiveness for all with ascension based on merit. However, if we're being honest about our meritocratic principles, social connections or funders' needs would have no impact on the speed at which a patch is reviewed or a bug triaged and fixed. I have little doubt that given infinite resources the importance of social or economic ties to establish reputation or motivate work would fade, but ours is not and never will be a world of infinite resources.

When examining the core principles of FLOSS outside of the aforementioned dynamics, the language we use to describe our motivations still remains fundamentally inwardly/self-focused rather than inclusive. We speak of "scratching our own itch." The desire to hack one's system - or even just have the ability to do so - speaks not primarily to ethical principles like the four freedoms, but an inherent desire for an individual to control one's own computing environment. If our motivations are fundamentally about pleasing ourselves, meeting our own needs and indulging our own desires, how do we act as a useful model for those whose wish is to transform society to be more fair and useful for everyone?

Don't get me wrong - I am in no way arguing that FLOSS community participants are not motivated by questions of conscience. Equally, I darn well believe that I should have the right to understand how the tools that shape my destiny work, whether or not I make the choice to understand those tools at a deep (read: source code) level. I hear more and more often from FLOSS folks that their involvement stems from the same place that it does for me, a non-programmer; simply put, FLOSS development methodolgies and the resulting community social structures are the "right thing to do" and the "right way to do it." Nonetheless, the fundamental tie that binds us across geographies, language barriers and technical preferences hinges on our shared belief that we each have the right, or duty, to take individual ownership of the tools we use and the work and world that results therefrom. How do we move from a model centered around what motivates "me" and the single individual to one that is truly useful for those who wish to apply our practices to society at large?

In the world that matters most to us - software - the ability to hack that world and make it our own simply is as it should be. Perhaps that's the best message we can share with those who will look to us when trying to understand how to make the world more open, transparent, and meritocratic: this is as it should be. It is the right thing to do. This is the best way to get things done.

Commercialization of FLOSS

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 03:19:00 +0000

The February 2009 issue of the Open Source Business Resource has just been published, and the theme of this month's issue is Commercialization. Definitely check it out - the article by David A. Wheeler on commercial use of FLOSS and how the U.S. government qualifies FLOSS for use is particularly interesting. I'm heading off now to read the paper the article was distilled from, FLOSS is Commercial Software.

When I think about the implications of FLOSS becoming more mainstream - or, if you like, is already mainstream - I'm excited about its realized potential to create real small business opportunities, especially at the local level. I'm much more excited about doing business with people I actually know rather than a faceless corporation. I'm all that much more excited when I can see that those I'm doing business with are clearly passionate about what they're doing, and in the FLOSS community passion abounds. By using the services of their local FLOSS geek at large, customers are actually able to directly interact with those who create, deploy and maintain the tools they use each day. I see that level of interaction as empowering for all parties, and a way of bringing the spirit of community that we enjoy online back into our real world communities.

Life is good.

Pre-FOSDEM Fun

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:42:00 +0000

I'm arriving in Brussels a few days early, getting the old internal clock adjusted and catching up with some old friends. Most of the core team for Melange will also be coming to FOSDEM, so I'll be spending most of my time haunting the halls with them. If you have have questions about the new workflow application for Google Summer of Code come and find me and I'll introduce you to the development team.

On Friday, 6 February. I'll be heading to the EduCamp organized by the Mozilla Foundation folks. Should be a great meetup for those of us interested in seeing FLOSS development added to the standard academic curricula, as well as a chance for us to talk about more ways to scale some of the burgeoning efforts in this area. Even if you can't attend the camp, I'd encourage you to follow our discussions on the wiki amd contribute your thoughts. For those interested in learning more about some of the FLOSS in Education initiatives out there, there's an excellent list of resources available, also courtesy of Mozillans.

And let's not forget the traditional Friday night beer blast. I'm usally not a big fan of beer, but watching the improved beer distribution algorithm - version 3.1 to be exact - in action should make for one exciting evening. Looking forward to dusting off those old armchair anthropologist skills....

17 Days to FOSDEM

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:32:00 +0000

Well, 16 according to the conference website, but I'm in California.

I'll be giving my first keynote presentation at this year's FOSDEM conference on Large Scale Community Management. 2009 will be my second FOSDEM and I'm excited about giving this talk. I speak about Google Summer of Code quite a bit, and this keynote promises to be one of the first inside looks at all the work done behind the scenes to make the program happen each year. It'll be a great opportunity to give some well deserved accolades to all the unsung heroes and heroines that have made the Summer of Code what it is today.

On a more personal note, I'm particularly excited about having the opportunity to share some of the lessons I've learned as the Community Manager for this large and incredibly diverse global group of FLOSS developers. I think my journey into the world of FLOSS was quite different than most, and writing this talk has helped me be more introspective about the skills I brought with me when entering the foray and the skills I've gained along the way. I'm looking forward to sharing my story right alongside the story of Google Summer of Code and using my experiences to better inform folks about how to run their own community outreach campaigns and best welcome new contributors to their projects. I'm hopeful that my exploration of why I've chosen the career path that I have and why I have been successful in doing so will be a source of inspiration. If not, at least there will be some pictures of cats and other merriment.

I'll be around for the entire conference and the pre-FOSDEM party. I'm pretty hard to miss, so please do come by and say hello and, if we haven't met yet, introduce yourself!

Dude, I Totally Went to the Skywalker Ranch Today

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:57:00 +0000

That's right, I spent today at one of the greatest temples in all of geekdom. I got to see Luke Skywalker's lightsaber. Wander the grounds. Perused the film library. Checked out the extensive collection of vintage movie posters. Had a delicious lunch. Wandered through the private movie theatre. Got to quickly sneak into one of the sound studios. Went insane purchasing swag at the company store.

It was just heavenly. Really.

Many thanks to Geoff Butterfield for the invitation to visit the ranch and the lovely tour. And many thanks to Cat Allman for introducing me to Geoff in the first place.

If you haven't ever taken a look at the great work done by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, hop on over to their website and check it out. Their magazine, Edutopia, is one of the only magazines out there that focuses on the educational space.

Article in Open Source Business Resource

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:34:00 +0000

I recently penned an article for the journal Open Source Business Resource on the Summer of Code model. I'd love for folks to check it out and let me know what they think. The full article is linked at the bottom of the abstract. Many thanks to Dru Lavigne for giving me the opportunity to submit the piece.

And in other news, the Ubuntu Developer Summit is in full swing, following a delightful FOSSCamp this past weekend. It's great to have the Ubuntu folks back again. It has been far too long since I've seen most of them.

And the rumors I've heard about the close of conference festivities are incredibly exciting. I won't spoil the surprise for anyone who may be attending, but think Bacon, Castro and close harmony singing. Or something along those lines.

Phone Conversations Are Hazardous

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 03:21:00 +0000

I truly hate talking on the phone. Business calls? Happy to have them when email won't cut it. Maintaining long term voice communication with friends and acquaintances when I can have a 'logged' discussion via IRC, GChat or email? Thank you, but no thank you. I have way to much going on in my life. Logs are required for getting stuff done. I'll gladly charge my phone to SMS you rather than pick up that land line.

Over the past year, though, I've learned to somewhat get over this whole phone aversion thing with my female friends. Specifically, Skyping with Lynne in Sydney. Video chat ++. There are no logs, but since it's kind of like being on your own TV show, I always remember what happens.

Then again, that's just me and Lynne - we play off each other well. Lynne and I keep threatening to tape our road trips and get our own YouTube show, but we've never managed to do it. Lynne, we really need to do this. I think we'll probably get to it around 2010 and it'll be set in New Zealand. Worked for Peter Jackson.

Lynne flew home a week ago, right after the first day of the Nonprofit Software Development Summit. This conference just rocked, btw. We'd spent the weekend herding cats at MeetBSD. MeetBSD featured copious amounts of dancing, and there was much rejoicing.

We also spent a week and a half touring the East Coast, which was eventful but not particularly restful. These things happen, though - I am fortunate to have many good friends to visit. Spent time in Boston thinking about Free Software, Obama and Crafting with Jag and Naphtali. They are two of the most awesome people ever. Lunch with the Free Software Foundation folks. Josh was in California getting acclimated at his new job, but he'll be out to California soon.

Walked the National Mall and went to the Smithsonian with Lynne and MJ. Ate delicious Southern Food. Drank delicious Taittinger champagne. Saw Addison randomly on the street, leaving a Drupal documentation sprint. Had a hotel room with a truly awesome shower.

D.C.'s highlights always remain the same for me: the Jefferson Memorial and the Hall of Minerals. So many beautiful shiny things, so many different structures and colors to engross the eye. Every time I visit I think that everyone who lives there could ostensibly visit them every day, free of charge. Spent a lot more time mulling about freedom at the statue of Thomas J.

Missed Arlington for the first time, which I regret. Stopped in a few small towns in Maryland and Massachusetts. Escaped from New York via the George Washington Bridge. Saw a few other friends here and there, caught up with even more online since I was in their time zone. It was good.

Which leads me to the entire point of this post. I looked at my iPhone (a.k.a. Steev - more on our impending breakup later) for the first time today and realized Randi had SMSed me about heading to the DNA Lounge. While it's a Monday night, it's also Thanksgiving week and not much is going on at work. Meh, why not? Since I'm out of AT&T's range here, I had to call. Sigh. Dialed. We began to do the version of the quick update, task-oriented, planning conversation about the evening, but turned out it just wasn't going to happen. C'est la vie, and likely for the best. Then we tried for the quick update, task-oriented version of gossip. Epic fail on that, though we have truly set a new standard for euphemistic discourse. Included in this conversation was at least two minutes spent discussing how much we hate using the phone.

When Randi finally walked out of the office to her car for the drive up to San Francisco, I pointed out once again that phone conversations were, in fact, awful and hazardous. We'd come to a particularly pivotal moment in the story, and we'd have to take it up later. It's like being stuck in a looooooong commercial break during your favorite Soap Opera. (Mine was Dallas.) Erg.

Decided the Soap Opera actually totally uninteresting, so I decided to watch James Bond instead. And James Bond, of course, makes me feel like writing. At last the poor blog gets updated. :)

Live and Let Die is the only Moore I can really palate, and that's because the New Orleans settings are beautiful. MeetBSD came with a visit from the lovely Louis and I saw Rob the next week at the Nonprofit Dev Summit. Erin swung into town to drive home with Louis. It's time to get back to New Orleans again soon, I can feel it.

I suspect I ought to do more work on this phone aversion for the sake of my carbon footprint. Chat can do in a pinch. Still, nothing beats having coffee with the people you love. Or iced tea. Or champagne.

I will make you iced tea. I will bring the champagne. Please don't make me use the phone.

2008 Nonprofit Software Development Summit

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:34:00 +0000

The good folks at Aspiration Technology are once again creating their magic with the second Nonprofit Software Development Summit. Given current economic conditions looking rather sucktastic to say the least, I'm looking for inspiration these days. And I find I'm really excited about the power of FOSS to help organizations that have limited IT resources to accomplish their goals. Pragmatism, accompanied by noble goals, is unstoppable. Provided there is action.

That's where the crew at Aspiration comes in. I go to a fair number of conferences. I spend most of my time with the hackers, documenters, artists, user experience researchers, users and partners of people in FOSS, and I know what motivates them to get things done. Hearing from people like Gunner, Lena, Michelle and San, people want to go GSD. (There are a whole host of other folks who belong on this list, as well; you'll find their names among those partners collaboratively developing the summit agenda.) Every time I go to an Aspiration led event I leave refreshed and inspired. And I get more good things done.

I'll be giving a talk about Google Summer of Code™ and how Google's support of the participating projects has helped provide tools to the non-profit world. I want it to be more of an open discussion and to find out what the non-profit world wants from FOSS developers.

In so many situations, I think we lose momentum because there are so few people who can translate between the divide of, for the sake of brevity, users and hackers. You know, those people who think their computer is, at best, a tool with many inconveniences. These are smart people. They are just not you - they do not breathe it, live it, love it, feel it in their fingertips the way you do. They want to accomplish a task and they don't have much of a budget to do it on. You can help with that. Though you likely need someone to help you help them figure out what they want. Then again, you may be one of those less-rare-than-previously-thought-but-still-rare-nonetheless social geeks who really digs talking to people. If you are, you should totally come. If you are one of those people who is good at getting people to geek out together when they are in totally different disciplines, you should totally come. I think we will learn a lot from one another.

Spending Time with the People You Love

mebelh@gmail.com (Leslie Hawthorn) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:33:00 +0000

A wise man once told me that time is really all there is.

I spent last weekend at GooCamp, the first Google unconference, ostensibly hosting but mostly just enjoying the weekend. Pips to Cat and Ellen for making this weekend what it was. Since the first rule of GooCamp is that you don't talk about GooCamp, I will just say it was quite lovely to catch up with all the folks from Zurich I hadn't spoken to in years - Douwe, Luuk, Michael and Sascha. It was wonderful to spend time with the Brits, too. Gregory, you're absolutely awesome. You too Neil.

Frankly, the entire weekend was spent among completely fantastic human beings. Good show all around. One of these days you should ask me about my Saturday afternoon In N' Out Burger experience.

I'm spending more time lately around the people who matter most to me. Kicking it with Andy a lot. And Andi. And Mark. And Shona and Kynan. And Mikal. Josh is coming into town tomorrow, and MJ sent an invite this morning for Steve's birthday bash this weekend.

Google Summer of Code 2008 Mentor Summit is in a little over two weeks. Life is good.