Learning From the Big Failures To Improve FOSS Advocacy and Adoption
Turtle (Mill bee) | Tue 16 Apr 11:40 a.m.–12:25 p.m.
Presented by
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Bradley Kuhn
https://ebb.org/bkuhn/
Bradley M. Kuhn is the Policy Fellow and Hacker-in-Residence at Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC). Kuhn began his work in the software freedom movement as a volunteer in 1992, as an early adopter of Linux-based systems and contributor to various FOSS projects, including Perl. He worked during the 1990s as a system administrator and software developer for various companies, and taught AP Computer Science at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati. Kuhn’s non-profit career began in 2000, when he was hired by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). As FSF’s Executive Director from 2001–2005, Kuhn led FSF’s GPL enforcement, launched its Associate Member program, and invented the Affero GPL. Kuhn began as SFC’s primary volunteer from 2006–2010, and became its first staff person in 2011. Kuhn's work at SFC focuses on enforcement of the GPL agreements, FOSS licensing policy, and non-profit infrastructural solutions for FOSS. Kuhn holds a summa cum laude B.S. in Computer Science from Loyola University in Maryland, and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Cincinnati. Kuhn’s Master’s thesis discussed methods for dynamic interoperability of Free Software programming languages. Kuhn received the Open Source Award in 2012, and the Award for the Advancement of Free Software in 2021 — both in recognition for his lifelong policy work on copyleft licensing and its enforcement.
Bradley Kuhn
https://ebb.org/bkuhn/
Abstract
After thirty years of FOSS advocacy, issue and problems in approach have begun to emerge. Strategic mistakes in approach to new technologies has often led to large areas of software endeavor to remain proprietary. While for-profit companies have been rewarded with great efficiency benefits and other perks from their adoption of FOSS, rarely do these benefits trickle down to consumers and end-users in their daily computing lives. This talk examines our past mistakes in advocacy and activism, and considers what to do next.
Since its advent in the late 1980s, the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community now has more than thirty years of experience in strategies for advocacy and encouraging adoption of FOSS. Results have, unfortunately, been mixed. While corporate adoption by for-profit companies has led to a boon and integration of FOSS into most corporate practices, the true promise of software rights and freedoms — the ability of individual hobbyist and consumers to participate on equal footing with the largest software producers in the world — mostly eludes our community.
This talk examines the wins, losses and challenges that FOSS advocacy has faced in the last thirty years. We'll explore how failures to foresee both web application deployment and the advent of advertising-based app-oriented software deployment led to serious strategic errors in advocacy and focus of attention. Many of these problems remain difficult to address, and only frank discussion among activists will reveal new approaches to continue a vibrant FOSS community into the next generation.
After thirty years of FOSS advocacy, issue and problems in approach have begun to emerge. Strategic mistakes in approach to new technologies has often led to large areas of software endeavor to remain proprietary. While for-profit companies have been rewarded with great efficiency benefits and other perks from their adoption of FOSS, rarely do these benefits trickle down to consumers and end-users in their daily computing lives. This talk examines our past mistakes in advocacy and activism, and considers what to do next. Since its advent in the late 1980s, the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community now has more than thirty years of experience in strategies for advocacy and encouraging adoption of FOSS. Results have, unfortunately, been mixed. While corporate adoption by for-profit companies has led to a boon and integration of FOSS into most corporate practices, the true promise of software rights and freedoms — the ability of individual hobbyist and consumers to participate on equal footing with the largest software producers in the world — mostly eludes our community. This talk examines the wins, losses and challenges that FOSS advocacy has faced in the last thirty years. We'll explore how failures to foresee both web application deployment and the advent of advertising-based app-oriented software deployment led to serious strategic errors in advocacy and focus of attention. Many of these problems remain difficult to address, and only frank discussion among activists will reveal new approaches to continue a vibrant FOSS community into the next generation.