Balkans and Bosnia. 🔗

My time abroad was counted in months, not years. Yet those five months in the Balkans gave me more opportunity to grow and discover myself than I could have anticipated. Living away from home is one step forward. But living away from your own country? Let alone somewhere you speak the foreign language? It is another three or five steps. I didn’t see it this way at the time, but my semester abroad broadened my passport and mind with each new stamp. Croatia first, then the Czech Republic and Belgium shortly after. Onwards then I went to Sarajevo, and then finally by bus to the company of great friends in Tirana, Albania. The end of my experience abroad would open an opportunity to travel and stay a short time in India, before returning once more to Albania and then finally back to the United States.

I remember my last-minute decision to travel over my spring break instead of studying in my apartment. The bus ride to Sarajevo was unforgettable. I was overcome by the thrill of learning something new and experiencing a city I had only read about. It was unexpected and wonderful all at once.

Patterns. 🔗

What strikes me now is the monotonous pattern of daily life. The opportunities for these learning experiences are fewer. On one hand, it was inevitable in some part due to a global pandemic. On the other hand, I have also been working on psychological well-being this year. Shockingly, it takes more energy and spoons than I originally anticipated (even with the great benefits and insights enabled by this work). The days when I counted the airports and train stations I passed through in a year is paused… but it is also difficult to imagine these places running at full capacity again.

My challenge in a virtual-first world is discovering new ways to restore and replenish the soul without being able to easily travel and connect with others face-to-face.

The Cryptographic Autonomy License is one of newest Open Source licenses on the block. The Open Source Initiative approved it in February 2020. This license also made ripples when it came through. But the question I had, and could not find a clear answer to, was why is it so interesting?

This blog post is my attempt to do a casual coffee-table review of the license. If you agree or disagree, I encourage you to leave a comment and share your opinion and why!

This short article covers three sections:

1. CAL-1.0 provisions: What basic Free Software assumptions are present in the license, much like other copyleft licenses.
2. What’s fresh!!: What is the hype? Ready for the key information? It is covered here.
3. Personal takeaways: My personal thoughts on this license and where it might be applicable.

CAL-1.0 provisions 🔗

I learned there are basic assumptions and expectations that are true for all Open Source licenses, per the Open Source Definition. Copyleft licenses also have different degrees of rigidity depending on context and use. So, what basic ingredients of a Free Software license are present in the Cryptographic Autonomy License?

Note: The number in parentheses before each line is the corresponding section number in the license text.

Basic legal provisions 🔗

• (6.0) Disclaimer of warranty, limit on liability: If someone uses the software and it causes unexpected disastrous side effects, the Licensor cannot be held responsible.
• (2.0) Receiving a license: Anyone can receive a CAL-1.0 license. To receive it, you just have to agree to its rules.
• (7.4) Attorney fees: If a case involving noncompliance with the CAL-1.0 is brought to court, loser pays legal fees for prosecution and defense.
• (7.3) No sub-licensing: You cannot add another license “on top” of the CAL-1.0.
• (3.0) Patent clause: Got patents? This license is equipped to interface with external patent licenses.

Permissive provisions 🔗

• (4.1) Access: Source code must be made available over a network with this license.
• (4.3) Attribution: Cite your sources. Retain all licensing, authorship, and/or attribution notices.

Copyleft provisions 🔗

• (4.1) Modified Work: Changes to the original Work make it a Modified Work. Same license rules apply to a Modified Work.
• (5.2) Reinstatement: A la GPLv3, for non-compliant derivative works, there is a 60 day grace period to come into compliance before your license is terminated.
• (4.5) Combined Work Exception: Software in the Larger Work as well as the Larger Work as a whole may be licensed under the terms of your choice.
• Network use: A la AGPL, it also includes a trigger for network use.

What’s fresh!! 🔗

The fresh take on this license from other licenses is all in 4.2. Maintain User Autonomy:

In addition to providing each Recipient the opportunity to have Access to the Source Code, You cannot use the permissions given under this License to interfere with a Recipient’s ability to fully use an independent copy of the Work generated from the Source Code You provide with the Recipient’s own User Data.

Section 4.2 Maintain User Autonomy: intro text

My non-lawyer take on this is that user data plays a much more prominent role in the terms of this license than other copyleft licenses. Just like the AGPL was a response to the changing world of network services and cloud computing, the CAL-1.0 is a response to the changing world of machine learning and data science.

The CAL-1.0 seems to define “user autonomy” in the context of actually using the software, versus something more holistic like Digital Autonomy. In other words, if you are running CAL-1.0 software, you cannot interfere with requests for personal user data from your users.

This might not sound so radical, but it really is. It is a radical way to assert users’ ownership of their data. If you are the end user of a distributed or cloud-based app licensed under CAL-1.0, you are enabled (to some degree) to request copies of personal user data without interference or obfuscation.

CAL-1.0 and Hatbrim Technologies 🔗

To better explain this, consider this made-up example.

I am a product manager at Hatbrim Technologies. Hatbrim develops an integrated calendar application, Holocal, to store events, meetings, and reminders. Holocal is an integrated application that includes a front-end component, back-end component, and a machine learning algorithm. The algorithm offers tailored suggestions to reduce my meeting load based on my common meeting patterns with other events or activities I have planned.

Oraculous, a competing company to Hatbrim Technologies, creates a fork of Holocal called OraCal. It is almost functionally identical to Holocal except it also adds an integration to other services from Oraculous. However, OraCal also modifies the calendar optimization algorithm. It adds a periodic random event suggestion based on events and activities in your calendar.

Meanwhile at Hatbrim… 🔗

Since I am a product manager at Hatbrim, I turn to my trusty team of developers and ask them to explore the OraCal fork of Holocal. I am curious to know how their calendar optimization method works, since Oraculous must also release OraCal under the Cryptographic Autonomy License (CAL-1.0). My team of developers review the OraCal code, try making changes to Holocal, but we are unable to replicate this feature of OraCal in our environment.

Eventually, one developer runs OraCal internally, but optimized for our data. Still no luck to reproduce the nifty calendar event suggestion feature! Fortunately, the CAL-1.0 offers a protection here. So, the developer sends an email to Oraculous to request her personal user data from OraCal provided to her. Because the CAL-1.0 has provisions to prevent foul play or modifying the data, the developer receives a copy of her data and realizes another Oraculous tool was scrubbing and appending data for calendar predictions before it returned to OraCal.

In this hypothetical scenario, our developer is ultimately able to understand how the Modified Work is changed and how Oraculous adapted the original Work. Under another copyleft license like any GPL variant or the Mozilla Public License, a licensee has no obligation to share any user data with an end user. For any reason. Unless they happen to be nice or because another legal authority or body holds them accountable to share user data.

CAL-1.0 personal takeaways 🔗

Did I mention I am not a lawyer and this does not constitute legal or financial advice? In case I did not, I am not a lawyer and this does not constitute legal or financial advice.

This advice and interpretation of the license is raw and unfiltered. But you only read something for the first time but once. So, with all other contemporary issues in the Free Software world going on, I thought it would be a fun exercise to draft this blog post as I read through the Cryptographic Autonomy License for the first time.

Ultimately, my takeaways after reading and reflecting on the license a few times is this:

1. Lack of transparency in motivation: Holo, the company behind the license, emphasizes all the good qualities of this license while sneakily dodging the fact that it is a mildly anti-competitive license for their business case.
2. Precedent-setting: This is the first approved Open Source license that explicitly does anything significant about data. It will be interesting to see if this inspires other licenses that make definitions on data.
3. Potentially powerful if picked up: If used more widely or in more popular projects, it has potential to disrupt the status quo of how Open Source thinks about user data and the autonomy of the end user.
4. No defining moment: To my knowledge, CAL-1.0 lacks a significant defining moment since its approval. It is unclear what real-world noncompliance litigation looks like. It lacks the battle-testing of other copyleft licenses.

I imagine I am not the only one who feels mutually excited and hesitant about the Cryptographic Autonomy License. I am not sure if it makes sense to apply to any of my work or to recommend as a default license to others yet. And licensing is only but one of many pathways in the Free Software legal and policy world. But nonetheless, it is an interesting Free Software development that is still maturing since February 2020.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash. Modified by Justin Wheeler.

Where Byfield was accurate 🔗

While I don’t agree with all of Byfield’s sentiments, he identified some key challenges that still hold truth today: a predisposition to focus on differences and not similarities, an outreach approach centered on ethics and not software, and the importance of opportunities for intersectional interaction.

Predisposition towards difference 🔗

First, Byfield notes the differing age groups of the activist communities and the tendency for viewing others by their differences first, not their similarities. He seems to attribute the tendency to view others by differences first as a characteristic of older generations; however, this is not necessarily the full truth.

As a member of the young activist community, this explanation is too simplistic of the underlying cause. There is also a political motivation by established power to sow division among the population of a nation-state. It makes community organizing more difficult and presents diversity as an issue to “solve” instead of a source of greater unity and common strength.

This is exemplified by the social media algorithms of today that reward sensational content (judged on likes, views, clicks, or other user feedback) and share it widely across a huge platform. In 2006, it was difficult to imagine the relationship social media would have in the lives of an everyday person; today, a great deal of social power is granted to those who understand how to leverage social media, either for good (e.g. social activism) or harm (e.g. deceptively persuading large parts of a nation-state’s population leading up to a national election).

The politics of division are within the fabric of our political systems; this is a challenge for modern-day activism and community organizing to overcome. In identifying this as a challenge, Byfield is correct that a differences-first approach makes it harder to share and spread the importance of FOSS in other activism circles, especially as technology becomes an increasingly relevant way of how we experience our lives and how our systems of law and justice are enforced.

Outreach on ethics, not software 🔗

Second, Byfield suggests an ethics-based approach to outreach is more effective than a software-based approach. This is also correctly noted, even if perhaps overemphasized. The jargon and language of the technology world is not accessible to the large majority of the global population. While some degree of technology literacy might be expected in some populations, much of the existing FOSS community is deeply rooted in technology. Sometimes this limited perspective is counterproductive.

This revisits the rebranding of “Free Software” as “open source” in 1997. For many subsets of the wider open source community in 2019, the default approach to open source software is merely a secondary thought for how to collaboratively work on technology. This is part of the outcome of the Open Source Initiative’s gamble in 1997 by beginning to emphasize the business sensibility and practicality of open source, and de-emphasize the social roots of Free Software (or rather, try and position itself as some sort of translator between these two “worlds”, as if they cannot be spoken of together in the same room).

As such, those who work on open source software projects are not necessarily predisposed to assume the role of an activist. Truly if Free Software is to take root outside of technology, then those who see the ethical values of Free Software need to better organize and promote the values of FOSS externally. This will contribute to the diversity of Free Software activism by helping non-technology activists add FOSS as a tool to their existing work.

Intersectional movement building is the future 🔗

Thirdly and finally, and perhaps most importantly, Byfield suggests the importance of intersectional interactions between Free Software communities and other activist communities. This is a fundamental requirement for the growth of Free Software as a social movement. Those of us in Free Software see the world around us informed by a background informed by technology; this background is emphasized in a world that is generating new, advanced technology at an unprecedented rate. However, while software and technology are important parts of the world around us, they are not the world around us. They are one part of a greater picture of fighting for a common good and welfare for all people. There are others in similar niches who have a deep understanding of their problem space and how they want to approach a challenge.

“One group may be working against child poverty, another for recycling, but the people in these organizations can almost be transferred from one to the next.”

Peter T. Brown, Free Software Foundation Executive Director (2006)

Just like a healthy garden, cross-pollination of these niches is vital to help others understand how we can help each other in accomplishing our mutual goals (this also feeds into why the politics of division explained above is so pervasive and difficult). Bringing Free Software technologists to activist communities where there is not an overwhelming Free Software background (and vice versa) is vital to building an intersectional social movement that strengthens the social impact of Free Software, not just open source.

Where Byfield didn’t go far enough 🔗

Byfield made one assumption on how activists have “their own share of insularity” and that the presence of connections between two movements does not mean they could immediately connect their existing beliefs with new ones. Fioretti’s challenge was in others understanding why they should listen to him; there was a lack of foundational knowledge of open source and technology that is normally assumed of someone who works as a software engineer.

Indeed, attention is a currency in the world of an activist. It is not enough for a FOSS advocate to expect others to listen to you on an appeal of technology. Part of the work in sharing is understanding who you are sharing with; if FOSS wants to take deeper roots in the activist community, it needs to understand the backgrounds of activist communities and be creative in how to appeal the mission of FOSS to the mission of their work. Where you can build in-roads together with others through common initiatives is the beginning of grassroots community organizing. So, while Byfield is right that there is an almost competitive nature of ideas in activism, it is not enough to write insularity off as a fixed aspect of nature. To not acknowledge this is to deny the influence of capitalist power structures in the humanitarian sector as they pertain to sustainable funding.

What are today’s challenges? 🔗

Some of today’s challenges are about inclusion and power.

Inclusion builds power 🔗

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) are important but poorly understood; not only are D&I about including people of different identities in technology, but also people with backgrounds outside of technology. FOSS stands to benefit by including more people who do not necessarily have a strong technology or engineering background. The goal is to inspire different perspectives to contribute in meaningful ways to build sustainable technology.

Instead of seeing diversity and inclusion initiatives as problematic or unneeded, D&I groups in FOSS communities stand to be the most effective people at building community and influence.

Power and governance 🔗

In the activist / humanitarian / non-profit world, there is a power struggle for sustainability as it pertains to funding. Funding models in non-profit work (usually sustained by grants, sponsors, and donors) encourage solutions that get funded, not necessarily solve problems the most effective way. Many organizations struggle with how to achieve sustainable funding without being so dependent on the expiration date of a grant’s funding.

We need more representative governance models in open source communities that reflect the interests of the communities around them, not necessarily an individual, a company, or group of companies. Building governance models that empower people within a community to make decisions and reduce the corrosive influence of money from humanitarian work.

Where do we go from here? 🔗

This blog post is an active reflection of my own thoughts and perspectives of Free Software, activism, and humanitarian work. If you are interested in pushing this conversation further, find me in Brussels, Belgium for any of the following three conferences and let’s chat further:

• 30 January 2020: Sustain Summit
• 31 January 2020: CHAOSScon
• 1-2 February 2020: FOSDEM

If you want to discuss this further, you can also drop a line in our online discussion community, fossrit.community.

Photo by Walid Berrazeg on Unsplash

Unfortunately, as I write later in this blog post, the “window of inspiration” to finish this draft has closed. So I figured it better to publish it as-is than to let it waste.

Unmodified text: “Nothing will be the same” 🔗

The sun slowly slips into the horizon, darkening the sky as the street lamps and buildings illuminate. On the main road through the city, the taxi works its way through the evening weekday traffic in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. My luggage is stowed in the backseat and I’m seated next to the driver, an older gentleman in his late 40s or early 50s. Unlike other countless taxi rides, the car wasn’t silent inside. The driver was curious. Through gestures, signing, and broken English, we shared stories with each other, about the past, the present, and the future. He asked me about America and the election, and if Americans are really like what is shown in the news. I asked him about life in Sarajevo, and he told me about the problems with employment and people searching for work.

Behind his weathered face, there were eyes that had seen some of the worst tragedy in the region. He lived in the city during the Siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s and remembered Srebrenica in 1995. He lived through years where hate and spite penetrated the hearts of neighbors. Yet, through it all, the man was cheerful and still hopeful. Even from our conversation, he had a resounding hope about the people of Sarajevo. In thirty minutes, I understood a different kind of history in the region than I had during the four years earning my high school diploma.

This is one memory that persists from my experiences over the past five months. On January 17th, 2017, I moved across the oceans to Dubrovnik, Croatia. I studied in Dubrovnik from January until the middle of May.

During the semester and after, there were incomparable experiences that opened my eyes to a world that previously I only imagined. With my experiences with writing, there is a window that is open for a short time. The window is your inspiration. If you look out the window and see something incredible, you are filled with inspiration and you want to capture it. But when you step away, the window only remains open for a short time after. If you miss the opportunity, the window will close and the writing will never reflect it in the same way. This is my cumulative attempt at trying to capture the last five months of my life.

The blog post I wrote comes from this place in my life. It writes in a voice I would not write in today. It also does not accurately reflect my current perspectives. However, instead of tossing it, I figured to publish it unfinished with this disclaimer would be no different.

Unmodified text: The Integral of a Community 🔗

Many times I’ve sat down to write about the same topic in this same seat. Many times I’ve been filled with the same unique feeling. It’s difficult to put into words. It’s easier to understand it and describe it in my head. But it’s easier to describe it to others when I’m still feeling this feeling. It’s harder to come back to it later and write about it.

This “feeling” is something powerful and organic. I believe it is derived from a core part of what makes us human. In part, it’s a form of social stimulation, but it’s also a little more. The “feeling” is what I’m beginning to term the integral of a community.

integral: (adjective) ˈin(t)əɡrəl,inˈteɡrəl/ - necessary to make a whole complete; essential or fundamental.

From Oxford Dictionaries

What is a community? 🔗

Communities are a fundamental part of our daily lives. We all belong to a community in one form or another. In my view, community is a loosely-defined word that gives rise to many forms. Our immediate family is a community. Our workplaces are a community. Our friends are a community. Our schools are a community. Our homes are a community.

Maybe we feel different about some of the above examples of a community. Your feelings on your familial community may be different from mine. Maybe we feel different about our school communities. But regardless of where you fall, there is a community that you are attached to. Maybe you don’t realize it, maybe you do. But this community holds a special part in your heart. It is, by definition, integral to what makes you, you.

Going forward, it is important to establish your own personal definition of this integral community. Whatever group of people you feel most comfortable with. It doesn’t matter what size. It could be one person or it could be twenty. It could be a hundred. But this community is fundamentally important to you.

What is integral of a community? 🔗

Several different components comprise a different community. They are formed around a range of different topics. Communities can be based around blood ties. Your family. They can be based around a shared interest, like art or technology. You may belong to a community based on your profession, such as a group of educators. Or perhaps you belong to a community full of differences. All of its members come from different backgrounds, professions, races, or anything. Maybe it’s because of close geographical location. Maybe it’s because of a former close geographic location. It depends on the community you identify with.

With such wide difference, it can be curious what makes a community so incredible for you. What components are integral to you? If you break down the outer shell, the answer becomes more clearly visible.

You identify with a community when you share a mutual interest, passion, or engagement with the others in your community.

When you feel most interconnected to your community is when you can feel or understand this most.

< more here >

My community 🔗

My community is the free and open source software community at the Rochester Institute of Technology. There are several individuals who have built this community from the ground up to make it what it is. It has endured its fair share of hardships and challenges. It has celebrated victories and achievements among its members. In the stereotypical application of the phrase, it feels like family.

Our communal responsibility 🔗

The shared context is the most valuable piece of the conference. As a first-time attendee, I was blown away by the depth and range of topics covered by attendees. This blog post covers a narrow perspective of Sustain OSS through the sessions I participated and co-facilitated in.

Speed breakout groups 🔗

The morning started with speed breakout groups of between six to twelve people. Several attendees acted as facilitators for discussion on special topics. Every attendee could about half of all groups. I took extensive notes in the following groups:

• Charitable participation in open source
• Diversity and inclusion
• Turning open source projects into sustainable projects / companies
• Design in open source
• Open source financial sustainability models

Sustain OSS: High-level takeaways 🔗

To save you time, these are my high-level takeaways across all breakout groups I participated in:

• Open source isn’t something just done in people’s free time

• Complex systems can enable systemic bias in terms of what “open source” means

• Sustainability as topic of first priority / consideration, not an afterthought

• There is no “silver bullet” solution to any of these challenges; they all require adaption to work across communities, projects, and organizations

Charitable participation in open source 🔗

This breakout group focused on the connection between charitable organizations and free software projects. It was facilitated by the esteemed Karen Sandler of the Software Freedom Conservancy.

Overall, the conversation was split among creating ethical software, finding sustainable funding models, and balancing how much control to relinquish as a managing organization of an open source project. Some felt pride and ideology were strong drivers for contributors to ideological projects (which also mirrors my experience at UNICEF). These could be key motivations to understand for contributors. Additionally, the challenge around sustainable funding models was common across charitable foundations focused on free software. Grant funding is a common strategy employed by charitable organizations, but the short-term nature of grants puts additional strain on resources to continue searching for new funding. Lastly, for charitable organizations overseeing or supporting free software projects, there was uncertainty over how much control should be left to projects. Attendees generally expressed a desire to let projects do what they want, but it sometimes came at the risk of additional overhead for the organization when everyone does something of everything. The concern over toxic communities came up, and how some issues remain buried until farther along in a relationship with a project. One successful solution employed was to hold monthly meetings among all member projects of an organization to address difficulties.

One interesting detail that captured my attention: one attendee noted how extensive effort into fundraising campaigns targeted to members of a foundation actually increased member engagement with the foundation.

Diversity and inclusion 🔗

My biggest takeaway from this session was the danger in thinking of open source as something we do in our free time. This can be exclusive to different genders, races, and socioeconomic statuses. Some “free time” is more equal than others. The actionable piece for me is to be more conscious in building and growing communities to support different levels of contribution in a community.

The question I wanted to explore after reflecting is to ask of those who feel disadvantaged:

• What factors makes a project more or less inviting for you?
• What can we do better when designing for participation in our communities?

Turning open source projects into sustainable ones 🔗

My notes weren’t thorough on this session, but there was an interesting point on trademark that came up during discussion of the Commons Clause. One participant was pursuing trademark law to enforce commercial protections and sustainability. They gave an example of a large corporation advertising support with a major open source project (e.g. a major software/hardware vendor supporting a specific NodeJS version). They wanted to use this as a way to create a more financially sustainable model for some projects.

Design in open source 🔗

This breakout group focused on sustainable design and design practices in open source communities. The role of designers in technical projects was also discussed and how we can build technical communities to be more inclusive for designers. It was facilitated by Elio Qoshi.

My takeaways from this breakout were that established ways of working can be unfriendly to designers and there is a need to emphasize diversity across different roles in a project or organization. Certain tools, platforms, or other mechanisms for contributing have poor user interfaces. They can push people away because of barriers to contributing with a frustrating user experience. Next, the need for diversity in roles was noted, with an example of engineers leading project management. Sometimes bias or oversights afforded as an engineer accidentally excludes others like designers or writers from contributing to our project. We should endeavor for people to spend more time on their preferred and most effective methods of contribution.

Financial sustainability models 🔗

This breakout session focused on the traditional sense of sustainability: in finances and resources. Attendees discussed different models used to fund open source projects and foundations. The session was facilitated by the founder of the MusicBrainz project, Robert Kaye.

The model used by MetaBrainz essentially as a data broker was interesting and unique. MetaBrainz offers commercial data usage at a cost, and companies using their data have a strong need for the data and see value in it. Through other parts of their model since changing three years ago, they had significant gains in their revenue and were able to increase paid staff working on the projects.

The Amazon invoice cake is also an amusing story, but you should ask Robert directly about it.

Hour breakout sessions 🔗

After lunch, attendees participated in two hour-long breakout sessions to explore specific topics in greater detail.

Human aspect of governance 🔗

Longer form notes are available below. I won’t go into detail since it has its own document with notes and highlights.

Human aspects of open source governance - Sustain OSS London 2018Download

University engagement 🔗

Together with Josh Greenberg of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, we co-facilitated a spontaneous session on how universities can engage with open source communities and vice versa.

In our session, two major topics were discussed:

• Education (e.g. curriculum, institutions, programs, etc.)

• Research

We asked all participants why they decided to participate and what questions they had, even though we weren’t able to answer all of them:

1. How do we get the word out?
2. What research is most valuable for open source?
3. How to long-term sustain projects?
4. How to actually do and support research?
5. How to engage both students and faculty?
6. How to harness / enable institutions to make positive contributions to ecosystem?

For education, we agreed that introducing and teaching open source in curriculum better serves students and the institution (both financially and in career satisfaction). Many technology companies today are participating in open source and it is an important skill to have for students entering the workforce. For research, students are already doing research and proposing topics, so better student engagement in open source is better for research.

Our takeaways were to better engage with existing organizations working on these problems for years already (e.g. POSSE), shifting the perspective of universities to be stewards of FOSS, and using collegiate hackathons as a way to better engage with undergraduate students.

One additional point that stood out to me was the emphasis across all breakout participants for a need of good communication skills to be successful. In many cases, the companies hiring top tech talent (from our breakout attendees) listed this as most desirable skill. Technology and new skills can be learned, but teaching good communication skills and how to work collaboratively are not easily learned.

Other takeaways 🔗

One takeaway I couldn’t fit elsewhere was my changed perspective on “technical” vs. “non-technical” work. The phrase “non-technical work” implies an “other space where development does not occur”. Does the phrase place unequal priority on technical work? One action item is to avoid using “non-technical work” as an umbrella term, and instead call these areas by what they are: design, documentation, writing, marketing, community building, etc.

For me, I still want an umbrella term for these things, but I’m open-minded for better alternatives to non-technical.

Skill share: conflict resolution 🔗

The last event of Sustain OSS was a 1x1 skill share. Roughly half of the attendees identified a “skill” they could teach someone else in the room. The other half of attendees paired with someone teaching a skill they wanted to learn more about. I paired with Jono Bacon on a short breakout on conflict resolution.

Jono detailed steps of working through and resolving conflict, including how to identify root problems, how to make steps to resolve them, and some personal philosophy of how we build and maintain relationships with others.

An important first step is to identify the critical point: this could be an ongoing crisis, dealing with interpersonal conflict, or dealing with burnout. When someone is explaining a problem, listen fully to them and understand what they are saying. Let them get it off their chest. Is there something else causing this behavior? Tap into the cloud of ranting and determine what the root cause is.

Once common ground is established, make a plan to resolve it. Jono’s advice was to create written next steps and be explicit about expectations. This way, everyone is on the same page of what the next steps are and everyone involved has signed off on these next steps (this creates a sense of commitment and the next steps become written as “law”). Encourage others to restate the goals of conflict resolution in their own words. Once you have written goals and expectations, the crucial next step is follow-up. Check in on a regular basis with the person or people involved. Try to be neutral and unbiased when listening to others in these conversations. Go in with an open mind.

Lastly, we contextualized conflict resolution in personal philosophy of how we build and maintain relationships with others – both in and out of our open source projects. Sometimes the best way to address difficult interpersonal problems is to stop avoiding them and simply address them. Much easier said than done, but otherwise there is no escaping the perpetuated cycle of conflict if someone doesn’t make a first step.

It’s not just about code.

Thank you 🔗

To wrap up this Sustain OSS report, a few obligatory thank-yous are needed:

• Sloan Foundation / Ford Foundation: For the financial support I needed to attend and participate in the event – this is never something I take for granted and I am happy to have received a scholarship to attend and participate

• Josh Greenberg @ Sloan Foundation: For helping me get over some imposter syndrome and co-facilitate the university engagement breakout session with me – thanks for the gentle push

• Robert Kaye @ MetaBrainz: For being generally awesome and finally giving me someone to nerd out about all these crazy ideas of how free culture and music can actually be related!

• Stephen Jacobs: For always being supportive for yet another trip abroad and helping me map a strategy to get the most out of Sustain OSS

Sustain OSS gave me a lot to think about and consider. I’m glad and fortunate to have attended. I hope this event report gives additional visibility to some of the conversations held in London this year.

The entry is lifted out of my journal with minimum edits. I thought about fully revising it or updating it before publishing. Many parts I would write in a different way now, but I decided to let it be. It reflects my perspective at that particular moment and time at 19 years old. It is more personal than other posts I’ve published and maybe it’s a little uncomfortable for me to share, but I felt like it was worth doing anyways.

entry002: 2017-02-12 🔗

Picking up the pen to write in this is always difficult because it feels like there’s too much to say. Part of the problem is that I don’t write frequently enough, which I’ll try to improve. Not everything worth saying needs to be publicly lambasted.

I left the apartment for coffee after again reading the story of Seth Vidal, a founding developer of YUM and a one-time Fedora superstar. Seth was killed in a hit-and-run accident while cycling in 2013.

What strikes me so much about Seth isn’t just the work or code he left behind, but his legacy. There is no shortage of blog posts dedicated in his memory, with many written by folks I see regularly in Fedora. He is held in a high respect and regard not only because of his work, but how he worked with people. He was clearly a sincere friend of many in the community and always knew how to use and share his brilliance to bring out the same brilliance of those he worked with. He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind, but he always did so courteously and in a way where there was a next step or improvement. As one memoir quoted him as saying with a cocked head and a smile, “Are you sure that’s what you want to do? Because I’m pretty sure it’s not.”

It’s odd for me to read about Seth and how connected to him I feel, despite his death occurring well before I was anywhere near where I am now. Maybe it’s because I, like [thousands] of others, use his software. But more likely is because I see the type of impact and legacy is something I wish to share. Not having so many people write memoirs of my passing, but more about how many lives, communities, and people he touched. I see a man you could approach with anything, whether he knew you or not, and he would give you his honest opinion to help drive or motivate you to success. It may not be what you want to hear, but it will be what you need to hear. Again, delivery of that message is critical, and Seth seemed to be pretty good at it.

I may not know Seth, nor will I ever, but his legacy gives me a strong reminder about what I hold important and how I want to carry out my presence in the projects I’m involved with. If more people want more Seth Vidal’s in the world, then we need to [understand] his values, compare them to our own, and build those values into our own being. This is part of the idea of actively shaping and adapting our values, and never settling with the way we are because we think we know these things. If the mind is open and willing, we are always learning, and thus, always changing.

In summary? Seth’s light fades out and burns into embers, but it never dies. His legacy will always be there, for friends to remember and strangers to learn from. Amidst all of this panicked writing I have to do after DevConf and FOSDEM, Seth’s legacy levels me and reminds me of what’s important. Sometimes what’s really important is logging off and going for a bike ride, or a coffee with notebook and pen, or sharing precious time with loved ones. Seth, you may be gone and have no memory of me, but I have your memory, and I hope you are with me too.

Justin Wheeler

Across this spectrum of bold headlines and addicting scrolling, I began to wonder about identity. What determines how we choose to identify where we originate from? What makes us decide to disassociate from our birthplace? What parts of our culture make us proud and content and what parts are like fresh wounds withheld from time and space needed to heal? I started to wonder about my own identity and what it means to me to be defined as an American.

I fight a growing sense of dissatisfaction and disbelief of what I read happening each day. As I read about the United States and how its citizens are represented on a global stage, a feeling of repulsion sinks into my stomach. Society greatly shaped my perspective of what it meant to be an American as I grew up. What is around me now is contradicting: the qualities of inclusiveness and diversity espoused to the identity of being an American are the same qualities I feel are under attack.

One afternoon as I walked back to my Chicago apartment, I passed a Mexican restaurant. As I walked by, I searched for a menu to measure how authentic it would be compared to offerings in Atlanta (I’ve notoriously had a difficult time finding authentic Mexican food north of Virginia). However, I was disappointed, as the choices fell into the category of American-Mexican food and not the authentic dishes I craved.

But even though I continued on and left the food behind me, the restaurant didn’t leave my mind. As I continued to ponder on what it means to be American, I couldn’t get this restaurant, and countless others like it, out of my mind. One of the most unique observations of my travels is how culturally homogeneous so many countries are. From my experience living in Europe and visiting India, the difference of cultural diversity from my American experience was impossible to miss. Each country was mostly shaped by its dominant ethnic group. To see a Nicaraguan in Croatia or a Swede in India would be a memorable encounter because it was outside of preconceived expectations. But in America, I board a New York City, Chicago, or Washington DC subway, and I always remain pleasantly surprised at how unique and different all the passengers are.

But what of the Mexican restaurant? If my train rides reflect this unique cultural identity, what is the significance of the Mexican restaurant and why can’t I forget it?

Suddenly, I realize perhaps American culture is several shards of all other cultures that assimilate here. Instead of the restaurant being an imitation of the real thing, what if it is as real and independent of an experience as the original? Instead of being a clone or a derivative, what if they are their own original craft and subculture? In a way, they are mostly unique – many of the fusions of culture, from food to celebrations, and architecture to film are only found in this sort of combination here.

These pieces of foreign culture are transplanted seeds, taken from their native soil and planted into a new environment. It requires adaption and perhaps creativity too. But these pieces of culture, whether they are motivated to be imitations or not, are created from a place of love and genuine human connection. They stem from a desire to celebrate who we are and where we come from. Furthermore, they offer an opportunity to share these things with others and to pass along the memories and experiences to others in the hopes that they too will see the world from a different perspective, if only for a passing moment.

As I continue to read past another day of headlines, I feel hopeful knowing this spirit of America, although challenged today, remains and exists. In a city like Chicago, it would almost be impossible to miss this range of diversity. While some choose to wrap words of hate and fear around the red, white, and blue stripes of the American flag, I try to remain mindful to keep this flag closer to me too, and wrap it around my values of love and compassion for others, and what it means to me to be an American in this political era.

The next album to spotlight in Tergiversate is Abysma by Los Angeles-based Geotic, a.k.a. Will Wiesenfeld. Abysma is the ninth studio album released by Geotic. It debuted on March 31, 2017. The album could be described as a cross between an electronica and indie pop. For Wiesenfeld’s first début on a record label with his side project Geotic, he makes a bold and eccentric presence with Abysma.

Why Abysma? 🔗

Abysma was an accidental discovery during a significant experience of my life. At the time, I subscribed to Google Play Music and I would sometimes receive recommendations for new music to listen to. On March 31, 2017, Google Play suggested Abysma as a new release I might like.

At the time, I was living in Dubrovnik, Croatia on a study abroad exchange. The album quickly became one of my favorites for the remaining two months I spent abroad. After returning to the US, I chose not to renew my subscription. Since I never purchased the album, it was conveniently forgotten after I returned.

Months later, in October, I reviewed some of my top albums from 2017 on Last.fm. I came across Geotic on the list and remembered Abysma. I decided to buy the album and add it to my library. Since then, the album returned to a regular spot on my listening queue.

Thus, perhaps it makes sense that I strongly associate this album to my time living abroad. Frequently, this album was the backdrop to afternoon walks near the Old City of Dubrovnik, long bus rides to Bosnia or Albania, or for studying the week before final exams. Regardless, this album rekindles my imagination for some of my own unique experiences. Therefore, it made sense to include this album in a Tergiversate column.

Themes 🔗

Deciphering Abysma is a challenge. Most of the record is ambient, with some songs featuring brief, synthesized, and heavily modified vocals. The album artwork is the next biggest hint to themes and meanings of the album.

The following are two themes I identified in Abysma:

• Own worst enemy
• Overcoming hardship

Both themes play a supporting role in each other,.

Own worst enemy 🔗

One of the primary themes of the album is recognizing our least desirable qualities of ourselves and letting them overpower our other positive qualities.

Artwork 🔗

The album artwork sets the foundation for this theme, combined with various hints from song titles and mood from each track. The artwork features a sun-bathed, empty room with a rainbow-colored body lain across the floor.

The body appears lifeless as it peers outside the bright window. The body is a metaphor for the bright and wonderful qualities we own, but the room represents a trap. Despite the wonderful qualities inside, we lock ourselves into boxes or rooms where we are unable to see past the walls. We only have a window into the great wonders of life – yet somehow we are not in that picture.

Songs 🔗

The mood of the album contributes to that idea. Sunspell, the opening track, creates the initial view of the album. The album is reminiscent of a bright, cheery atmosphere, but it seems remote and disconnected at the same time. The sunlight captivates us and puts us under a spell – in the spell, the bright lights of others and the world we see strike us and blind us.

The following tracks continue to build this atmosphere, leaning towards an introspective and oblique feel. Echoing words of “it all makes sense” on Nav feed this idea of deep, intrinsic wonder to ourselves. As the album grows in its mysterious nature, so does the feeling of mental isolation. As Abysma progresses, Geotic puts on a lens of closer and closer self-introspection.

Admittedly, not all the qualities in this lens are the best ones. The theme reaches its climax in Perish Song. The song title leaves little room for second guessing. In the long, drawn-out waves of the synthesizer and delicate piano keystrokes, a listener is left with understanding of a type of depression. It’s reminiscent of the days when our thoughts are self-destructive and harmful.

What it all means 🔗

Whether by design or by accident, Geotic forces the listener to find a level of acceptance of their own mind. Throughout life, we sometimes make ourselves our own biggest enemy and showstoppers. Even though we are all filled with a natural bright and illuminating nature (like a child), we can lose sight of that version of our self. This theme is present because we become aware of ourselves when listening. Everyone has been their own hardest critic, and Abysma is a gentle reminder that sometimes we are hardest on ourselves.

Lingering thoughts remain whether the harsh self-criticism is worthy or not, but this is quickly answered at the close of the record.

Overcoming hardship 🔗

In a quick turnaround, the last song of the album, Valiance, introduces the second theme and integrates into the different pieces of the previous theme.

The second theme builds on the idea that even in our worst qualities and lowest moments (e.g. Perish Song), we are able to overcome the battle with our mind and find our own peace. After all, the body on the album cover reflects light and echoes the colors of the rainbow – we always possessed the qualities, but perhaps did not recognize them within us.

Valiance 🔗

The high notes and intense energy of Valiance are a contrast to some of the introspective atmospheres earlier in the album. While Valiance is also introspective, it changes the lens. Instead of looking in at our worst qualities, it’s a change in perspective to look at our better qualities. The song almost seems to externalize the hidden energy inside the body on the album cover.

Valiance is a reminder of our ability to find peace with our mind and create our own happiness. It tells and affirms that we can overcome our hardships, whether imposed on us by ourselves or by others.

What it all means 🔗

One line from the lyrics of Perish Song are significant. It plays back into the second theme:

The heat of the sun,

Is there if you want.

We decide whether we want to feel the warmth and heat of the sun in our life. We are the ones that make a choice to how we receive the world and our experiences in life.

As a whole, this theme plays into the previous theme because it takes a stark change in direction. But it plays together beautifully. The negative and difficult recognition of our own self as an enemy is challenging. It reminds of our shortcomings, our regrets, our missed opportunities. It becomes easy to pin the blame on ourselves. Not only that, but the awareness can introduce a concern of not being able to overcome our failures.

Yet, the album ends elegantly, brightly, and brilliantly. The closing reminds us that we should always choose the heat of the sun in our life. When we shape our perspective of the world and the people around us, we make a choice for how we receive and interact with it. To make a positive impression of the world and those around us, we must become comfortable with ourselves first. We have to find peace with our own mind before we can find peace with any others.

The closing of Abysma reminds us of that, in a layered progression from recognizing our worst qualities to acknowledging they can always be overcome. Recognizing our worst qualities is challenging, but it’s a challenge we can overcome when we live in the light and warmth. When we choose happiness, love, and compassion, these qualities reflect and echo back to us in life.

Where to find Abysma 🔗

Most albums reviewed in Tergiversate focus on the complete album, not each song. Consider making your first listen from top to bottom instead of picking single songs. My experience in music is that great albums offer the most when enjoyed in a single, immersive experience.

• Bandcamp (preferred, directly supports artist)
• Spotify
• iTunes
• Google Play
• Amazon
• SoundCloud

Curious where the name “Tergiversate” came from? Check out the dictionary definition.

Many times, I’ve sat down to write this. The same number of times, I never finish and delete it all. Many times, I’ve wondered how to say the things I want to say. I’ve been doing this for years. However, the motivation this time is different.

Two important events made me realize that writing this is important. A conversation with one of my friends about what was happening in my life reminded me of the critical, psychological benefit of communicating and being honest and open about myself. The second thing was an insight from an article I saw on Twitter, about Sheryl Sandberg and dealing with grief. The profound insight in the article to me was the intersection between effective leadership and expressing emotion. “Expressing emotion when you’ve gone through extreme pain is not weakness. It is humanity.”

This post isn’t like anything I’ve written before, but it is a necessary next step for me to move forward.

I live with depression.

It’s a battle that has various turns and twists, and different highs and lows. There are days, weeks, even months where I don’t feel its weight. But there are also long periods of time where it envelops me and becomes my world.

There are some insights I’ve learned over time, though. In the spirit of being more open and true to myself, I want to share some of my experiences and also some advice from those experiences.

In my own world 🔗

Others who have experiences of their own can recount similar details to the looming feelings that overtake them. Sometimes it comes at the most unexpected moments, even if everything around you is going right. Yet, there it is.

The looming feeling deep in your stomach.

The heavy weight that presses down on your consciousness.

Sleeping early and waking up late, or not sleeping at all.

The sucking of your productive energy towards meaningless tasks, like spending more of your time reading about the lives of other people instead of living your own. The feelings have a wide range. Regardless of the specifics, anyone who has walked this quiet path can take these general points and recount them into their own story.

The most difficult part is the creeping feeling when the depression begins to take hold, but it feels like there’s nothing that can stop it.

Now that I’ve had more years to reflect on my depression, I’m better able to pick out some of its origins and characteristics. Even knowing these things, there isn’t one form of depression or one way it looks like. What form it takes on depends on contextual evidence and what’s happening around me.

Depression is… 🔗

Sometimes, depression wears the mask of incompetence. It’s not uncommon for me to set too high of a bar for myself to reach. When I don’t meet those expectations or if I fall behind, my self-esteem slowly erodes. One missed assignment or deadline turns into two, then four. What was a small problem is exacerbated into a chain reaction of many problems. This builds the feeling of incompetence. Navigating the web of problems after it is spun becomes difficult and drains all energy. Personal motivation decreases leaving me wondering why I bother at all.

Sometimes, depression causes you to cast poor comparisons. It’s looking at the highlight reel of other peoples’ lives while you’re going through the cut-out reel. I wrap myself up in the achievements and successes of others. It’s an echo chamber of negative thought, where the lives of friends, family, or acquaintances remind me of my self-perceived incompetence. Everyone seems smarter and brighter. It looks like everyone else has it together when I’m struggling to meet deadlines and remembering to eat. Social media aggravates this. The entire premise of social media is to share the “highlight reel”, to show off when everything in your life is going right—which is why social media is the worst thing to look at when you’re in the trenches.

John Green shared a video recently about how we frame our lives that describes this well.

In which John discusses the ways we frame reality, the distance between the selves we put online and the selves we inhabit, and the challenge of understanding public lives as self-portraiture rather than reality.

There are other forms that it takes too. But underneath its form, the emotions are usually the same (at varying intensities). It’s a spectrum of feelings and activities, ranging from loss of interest, difficulty finding motivation, worthlessness, unusual sleep patterns, nail-biting, and at its worst, wanting a permanent way to escape. This goes without saying, over the years, I have become more adept at pushing out the harsher thoughts by recognizing them and reaching out to a close friend when I feel that way. But the spectrum varies depending on the surrounding events.

Invisible 🔗

My biggest challenge was how I kept it all hidden. Only a handful of people knew about some of my difficulties and what was going on behind the scenes. There were two critical fears that always prevented me from stepping out of the dark.

If I were to be honest about what I was going through, I didn’t want to be treated differently by others, personally or professionally. I’ve always felt that if I presented an idea or had a conversation with someone, agreements or disagreements were because of the ideas being conveyed, not because someone cast judgment on what they think I can handle. This was and is valuable to me.

But why was this a fear of mine? We have a problem of “talking about it”. The stigma is that it’s wrong to “feel bad”. It’s not comfortable to talk about. It’s difficult for others to sometimes relate. The tone that people speak to you changes. This stigma created the fear that every conversation would become heavy-handed with special treatment. What I realized is that this fear isn’t justification to keep the lights off.

By becoming transparent about it, my hope is that this won’t be the case. I don’t want to be treated differently than how anyone has already treated me. If you’re wondering about how you can help, this is one of the best ways: to treat me the same way. (Although more hugs are never something I complain about!)

However, there was one more fear that kept me in the dark.

To become more comfortable with sharing these emotions, it means being honest when someone asks how you are and reaching out for help when you need it. But it can be a lot to ask someone to help untangle the thick cobwebs when you’re having a hard time seeing through. From being on the receiving end before, I knew how it can be draining (even if it’s worthwhile and makes a difference in the end). My fear was putting too much burden on others and draining their energy on problems that don’t concern them. Everyone has their own stress and problems too. As a result, I rarely shared my pain and difficulty with others to avoid placing more stress on others.

When you’re afraid of adding more stress onto others, it impacts the type of actions you make. It might look typing out a long message when someone asks if everything is okay, then deleting it to say, “Everything is fine!” Other times, it’s the confusion over how to answer a simple question like, “How are you?” Sometimes it’s simply feeling alone.

But even though this is a fear, there is also a balance and a way to prevent adding so much stress to a close one’s life. Real relationships don’t flow like a river, in a single direction. It’s like a two-way road where traffic passes in both directions. It’s unsustainable for one person to only lean on one person. It goes both ways and the communication has to be two-way to be successful. However, letting everything out at once after it’s built up for so long isn’t the answer either. This is that overloading stress that creates this fear of sharing in the first place. Communication needs to be early and often. You have to share and you have to be honest.

I realized these fears shouldn’t keep me from sharing my story. The benefits of being open and sincere outweigh the perceived negatives from these fears. It takes a lot to throw yourself out in the open, but once it’s out, some of the extra weight falls off.

Opening the blinds, turning on the lights 🔗

But my purpose with this post wasn’t to only reflect on my personal experiences either. I hate raising problems without offering means to solving them. There are plenty of ways to learn about how to deal with depression. You can talk to a therapist and seek medicine too. But I wanted to share some of the things that have helped me get out of the hole and fight back.

However, none of this advice should be taken over professional medical advice. I am not a doctor and I won’t act like one. If you are experiencing severe depression, please take the first step and talk to a doctor.

Seriously… talk about it 🔗

Maybe this seems like common sense. Maybe you are afraid of what others might think of you if you tell them “the truth”. What talking about it looks like is up to you. Whether it’s a trusted friend, a family member, or a trusted individual, psychotherapy (or talk therapy) has significant benefits for helping you put your best foot forward. Whether it’s formal or informal, professional or friend-to-friend, getting it out there helps. It lets you have a chance to decompress from the build-up of stress. It also gives someone else a chance to remind you of the positive counterpoints to the negative thoughts.

Sometimes the best responses I’ve received is just an affirmation of love. Telling someone that you value them and that you love and care for them goes a long way.

Find your detox 🔗

Your “detox” activity depends on you. Everyone has a different form of what helps remove them from the negative emotion and feelings. The purpose of detoxing is to give yourself a chance to separate from what’s providing the stress and to step away, even if for a short while. Usually, one of the best first steps is unplugging from the laptop, the phone, or other digital ties. Some time off from the grind will help you to refocus and bring your mind to a better place.

For example, some of my detox activities are listening to the right music and taking a walk. My music might be my best therapy. Sometimes it’s having a conversation with a close friend about something completely random. Other times, it’s writing a few lines into a notebook. What the activity is depends on you. But it’s important to find those positive, uplifting experiences and remember them when your vision becomes cloudy.

Look up, even if it feels wrong 🔗

One of the things that I’ve started to practice is persuading my mind how to think. Even when everything looks or feels completely awful, I make myself look up. I tell myself that I’m feeling good, and I make myself genuinely believe it. I put my entire faith into that positive energy, of what I know things should be. It’s a challenge. It’s not easy. I can’t always do it. But it’s an art of persuasion. And with any art, it takes practice.

The challenge is to sincerely look for the positivity and happy emotions that are around you. You have to tune yourself to the same emotional frequency as the positive energy. Like a radio signal, you have to turn your channel to receive that positive energy and emotion. And if you’re ready to receive, it will present itself.

In the more difficult times, this is the hardest advice to follow. The negative thoughts creep back into your mind. But recognition is key. To see and identify those thoughts and consciously acknowledge them for what they are is the first step. After identifying the negative energy, you have to turn your own channel. Instead of thinking, “I don’t want to feel that way,” think of the way you do want to feel. Think of the positive energy, emotions, experiences, or memories. Tell yourself, “I want to feel this way,” or “I want to feel good.” Even if it seems trivial and impossible, invest your energy and focus into attracting that positive energy. If you convince yourself that it’s there and you are going to find it, circumstances change. They have a strange way of working themselves out. But you have to know what you want.

Even when it feels like you’re in an emotional headlock straight to the ground, twist a little more to look up. At the sun, the light. The positive emotions and energy in life. And keep looking up.

Remember what’s good 🔗

Depression isn’t a one-time illness. You don’t have a revelation one magical day and are suddenly “cured” of depression. It’s a cycle, with ups and downs. It requires balance and powerful support systems to stave off its hardest moments. The first step is recognizing the tug-of-war and identifying when things start to feel wrong. Make the steps to pull back from the things that bring the negative thoughts and energy. Remember what you do want and how you want to feel. Remember what’s good.

It took me a long time to write this. For six or seven years, I’ve tried to find the right words. But what I realized is that if I wait for the right words, I’ll wait forever. Even with the advice I gave, I’m not perfect and I’m not always able to fight it every time. This is something I actively live with. I have good days and I have bad days. The bad days are what brought me to write this in the first place. But the sun always comes up, one way or another. That’s what I always have to remind myself.

There are many stories out there. But this one is mine. Thank you.

Preface 🔗

When I started writing this in January, I read freenode’s “Happy New Year!” announcement. Even though their recollection of the year began as a negative reflection, the freenode team did not fail to find some of the positives of this year as well. The attitude reflected in their blog post is reflective of the attitude of many others today. 2016 has brought more than its share of sadness, fear, and a bleak unknown, but the colors of radiance, happiness, and hope have not faded either. Even though some of us celebrated the end of 2016 and its tragedies, two thoughts stay in my mind.

One, it is fundamentally important for all of us to stay vigilant and aware of what is happening in the world around us. The changing political atmosphere of the world has brought a shroud of unknowing, and the changing of a number does not and will not signify the end of these doubts and fears. 2017 brings its own series of unexpected events. I don’t consider this a negative, but in order for it not to become a negative, we must constantly remain active and aware.

Secondly, despite the more bleak moments of this year, there has never been a more important time to embrace the positives of the past year. For every hardship faced, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Love is all around us and sometimes where we least expect it. Spend extra time this new year remembering the things that brought you happiness in the past year. Hold them close, but share that light of happiness with others too. You might not know how much it’s needed.

First year of university: complete! 🔗

Many things changed since I decided to pack up my life and go to a school a thousand miles away from my hometown. In May, I officially finished my first year at the Rochester Institute of Technology, finishing the full year on dean’s list. Even though it was only a single year, the changes from my decision to make the move are incomparable. Rochester exposed me to amazing, brilliant people. I’m connected to organizations and groups based on my interests like I never imagined. My courses are challenging, but interesting. If there is anything I am appreciative of in 2016, it is for the opportunities that have presented themselves to me in Rochester.

Adventures into FOSS@MAGIC 🔗

My involvement with the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community at RIT has grown exponentially since I began participating in 2015. I took my first course in the FOSS minor, Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software Development in spring 2016. In the following fall 2016 semester, I became the teaching assistant for the course. I helped show our community’s projects at Imagine RIT. I helped carry the RIT FOSS flag in California (more on that later). The FOSS@MAGIC initiative was an influencing factor for my decision to attend RIT and continues to play an impact in my life as a student.

I eagerly look forward to future opportunities for the FOSS projects and initiatives at RIT to grow and expand. Bringing open source into more students’ hands excites me!

I <3 WiC 🔗

With a new schedule, the fall 2016 semester marked the beginning of my active involvement with the Women in Computing (WiC) program at RIT, as part of the Allies committee. Together with other members of the RIT community, we work together to find issues in our community, discuss them and share experiences, and find ways to grow the WiC mission: to promote the success and advancement of women in their academic and professional careers.

Also, hey! If you’re a female high school or university student in the Rochester area (or willing to do some travel), you should seriously check this out!

Google Summer of Code 🔗

Google Summer of Code, abbreviated to GSoC, is an annual program run by Google every year. Google works with open source projects to offer stipends for them to pay students to work on projects over the summer. In a last-minute decision to apply, I was accepted as a contributing student to the Fedora Project. My proposal was to work within the Fedora Infrastructure team to help automate the WordPress platforms with Ansible. My mentor, Patrick Uiterwijk, provided much of the motivation for the proposal and worked with me throughout the summer as I began learning Ansible for the first time. Over the course of the summer, my learned knowledge began to turn into practical experience.

It would be unfair for a reflection to count successes but not failures. GSoC was one of the most challenging and stressful activities I’ve ever participated in. It was a complete learning experience for me. One area I noted that I needed to improve on was communication. My failing point was not regularly communicating what I was working through or stuck on with my mentor and the rest of the Fedora GSoC community. GSoC taught me the value of asking questions often when you’re stuck, especially in an online contribution format.

On the positive side, GSoC helped formally introduce me to Ansible, and to a lesser extent, the value of automation in operations work. My work in GSoC helped enable me to become a sponsored sysadmin of Fedora, where I mostly focus my time contributing to the Badges site. Additionally, my experience in GSoC helped me when interviewing for summer internships (also more on this later).

Google Summer of Code came with many ups and downs. But I made it and passed the program. I’m happy and fortunate to have received this opportunity from the Fedora Project and Google. I learned several valuable lessons that have and will impact going forward into my career. I look forward to participating either as a mentor or organizer for GSoC 2017 with the Fedora Project this year.

Flock 2016 🔗

Towards the end of summer, in the beginning of August, I was accepted as a speaker to the annual Fedora Project contributor conference, Flock. As a speaker, my travel and accommodation were sponsored to the event venue in Kraków, Poland.

Months after Flock, I am still incredibly grateful for receiving the opportunity to attend the conference. I am appreciative and thankful to Red Hat for helping cover my costs to attend, which is something I would never be able to do on my own. Outside of the real work and productivity that happened during the conference, I am happy to have mapped names to faces. I met incredible people from all corners of the world and have made new lifelong friends (who I was fortunate to see again in 2017)! Flock introduced me in-person to the diverse and brilliant community behind the Fedora Project. It is an experience that will stay with me forever.

To read a more in-depth analysis of my time in Poland, you can read my full write-up of Flock 2016.

Maryland (Bitcamp), Massachusetts (HackMIT), California (MINECON) 🔗

2016 provided me the opportunity to explore various parts of my country. Throughout the year, I attended various conferences to represent the Fedora Project, the SpigotMC project, and the RIT open source community.

There are three distinct events that stand out in my memory. For the first time, I visited the University of Maryland for Bitcamp as a Fedora Ambassador. It also provided me an opportunity to see my nation’s capitol for the first time. I also visited Boston for the first time this year as well for HackMIT, MIT’s annual hackathon event. I also participated as a Fedora Ambassador and met brilliant students from around the country (and even the world, with one student I met flying in from India for the weekend).

Lastly, I also took my first journey to the US west coast for MINECON 2016, the annual Minecraft convention. I attended as a staff member of the SpigotMC project and a representative of the open source community at RIT.

All three of these events have their own event reports to go with them. More info and plenty of pictures are in the full reports.

• Going to Bitcamp 2016
• HackMIT meets Fedora
• SpigotMC goes to California for MINECON

Vermont 2016 with Matt 🔗

Some trips happen without prior arrangements and planning. Sometimes, the best memories are made by not saying no. I remember the phone call with one of my closest friends, Matt Coutu, at some point in October. On a sudden whim, we planned my first visit to Vermont to visit him. Some of the things he told me to expect made me excited to explore Vermont! And then in the pre-dawn hours of November 4th, I made the trek out to Vermont to see him.

Instantly when crossing over the state border, I knew this was one of the most beautiful states I ever visited. During the weekend, the two of us did things that I think only the two of us would enjoy. We climbed a snowy mountain to reach an abandoned fire watchtower, where we endured a mini blizzard. We walked through a city without a specific destination in mind, but to go wherever the moment took us.

We visited a quiet dirt road that led to a meditation house and cavern maintained by monks, where we meditated and drank in the experience. I wouldn’t classify the trip has a high-energy or engaging trip, but for me, it was one of the most enjoyable trips I’ve embarked on yet. There are many things that I still hold on to from that weekend for remembering or reflecting back on.

A big shout-out to Matt for always supporting me with everything I do and always being there when we need each other.

Finally seeing NYC with Nolski 🔗

In no short time after the Vermont trip, I purchased tickets for my favorite band, El Ten Eleven, in New York City on November 12th. What turned into a one-day trip to see the band turned into an all-weekend trip to see the band, see New York City, and spend some time catching up with two of my favorite people, Mike Nolan (nolski) and Remy DeCausemaker (decause). During the weekend, I saw the World Trade Center memorial site for the first time, tried some amazing bagels, explored virtual reality in Samsung’s HQ, and got an exclusive inside look at the Giphy office.

This was my third time in New York City, but my first time to explore the city. Another shout-out goes to Mike for letting me crash on his couch and stealing his Sunday to walk through his metaphorical backyard. Hopefully it isn’t my last time to visit the city either!

Finalizing study abroad 🔗

At the end of 2016, I finalized a plan that was more than a year in the making. I applied and was accepted to study abroad at the Rochester Institute of Technology campus in Dubrovnik, Croatia. RIT has a few satellite campuses across the world: two in Croatia (Zagreb and Dubrovnik) and one in Dubai, UAE. In addition to being accepted, the university provided me a grant to further my education abroad. I am fortunate to have received this opportunity and can’t wait to spend the next few months of my life in Croatia. I am currently studying in Dubrovnik since January until the end of May.

During my time here, I will be taking 12 credit hours of courses. I am taking ISTE-230 (Introduction to Database and Data Modeling), ENGL-361 (Technical Writing), ENVS-150 (Ecology of the Dalmatian Coast), and lastly, FOOD-161 (Wines of the World). The last one was a fun one that I took for myself to try broadening my experiences while abroad.

Additionally, one of my personal goals for 2017 is to practice my photography skills. During my time abroad, I have created a gallery on 500px where I upload my top photos from every week. I welcome feedback and opinions about my pictures, and if you have criticism for how I can improve, I’d love to hear about it!

Accepting my first co-op 🔗

The last big break that I had in 2016 was accepting my first co-op position. Starting in June, I will be a Production Engineering Intern at Jump Trading, LLC. I started interviewing with Jump Trading in October and even had an on-site interview that brought me to their headquarters in Chicago at the beginning of December. After meeting the people and understanding the culture of the company, I am happy to accept a place at the team. I look forward to learning from some of the best in the industry and hope to contribute to some of the fascinating projects going on there.

From June until late August, I will be starting full-time at their Chicago office. If you are in the area or ever want to say hello, let me know and I’d be happy to grab coffee, once I figure out where all the best coffee shops in Chicago are!

In summary 🔗

2015 felt like a difficult year to follow, but 2016 exceeded my expectations. I acknowledge and I’m grateful for the opportunities this year presented to me. Most importantly, I am thankful for the people who have touched my life in a unique way. I met many new people and strengthened my friendships and bonds with many old faces too. All of the great things from the past year would not be possible without the influence, mentorship, guidance, friendship, and comradery these people have given me. My mission is to always pay it forward to others in any way that I can, so that others are able to experience the same opportunities (or better).

2017 is starting off hot and moving quickly, so I hope I can keep up! I can’t wait to see what this year brings and hope that I have the chance to meet more amazing people, and also meet many of my old friends again, wherever that may be.

Keep the FOSS flag high.

Which is a lie: darkness or lightness?

Light illuminates all details,
Corners, etches, ink, faces,
The true nature of things is found.

Dark marks the details,
Obfuscates what you thought as truth,
An alternate reality presents itself.

Darkness is a master of tricks,
Or is it the light that plays with the head?
Whose word are you to take?

Where light exposes kindness, gratitude, warmth,
Dark brings hostility, hate, cold,
Both complement and counteract another.

Which is a lie: darkness or lightness?

The answer lies within,
Neither one is entirely true itself.
The secret lies within dawn and dusk.

Photo by elizabeth lies on Unsplash. Modified by Justin Wheeler. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Original annotation: This was in the random parking lot not too far from the Colony Manor apartment. I wrote this in the car.

It should have started with a bang,
But instead of sound,
Only light.

At a window facing out,
I stand.
Willed by a force absent my control.

Keychains jangling,
Steps toward the car,
Apartment lights in rearview.

The wind speaks stories:
of adventure, love, destiny.
My role is but an observer.

Thousand-year winds,
Thousand-mile winds,
Transoceanic drifts.

If you listen and if you feel,
See past, present, and future,
Sift through the fibers of your clothes.

The wind retreats to the clouds,
The clouds alight to sparks.
Rain washes the stories away.

Listen to your own words,
Vivid with imagination and dreams.
Impart your own being to the stream,
And you will never die.

Photo by Jake Weirick on Unsplash. Modified by Justin Wheeler. CC BY-SA 4.0.

I was cleaning out my saved notes on Telegram and found this untitled poem.

To walk a stranger on the path,
A path of former glory,
Filled with fearlessness,
And the structure of a cloud.

The path is the same.
The memories burn like a flame,
Reignited by repetition.
Strengthened by familiarity.

But it is not the same.
Once you were ingrained,
But no longer the same.
The difference is you.

Your own snapshots emerge,
Out of the dark room,
Into the light.
Side by side you can compare.

Colors blend,
Lines blur.
Faces merge,
Age shows.

From analog to digital,
The past stands before you.
Electrons absent from pocket,
Disconnected but immersed.

The classical poet's demise,
Never has appeared so clear.
Turning to cryptic meaning,
As it cannot be explained.

The sun sets on our histories,
But rises anew ahead in time.
Keep close your memories,
But remember one thing.

Do not let them consume your new world.

My Year in Review 🔗

With an hour left until the New Year, there never seemed a better time to begin writing my Year in Review article. While it is a stereotypical kind of thing to do, I also think it’s a great opportunity to reflect on the gifts, changes, and special occasions that this past year has presented to me. 2015 is special to me in many ways because it marks a significant milestone in my life of moving away from home and beginning my journey into full adulthood.

There are many important and special people in my life that have made this year incredible, and I want to reflect and make note of this.

</high school> <college> 🔗

This past May, I graduated from high school. Looking back, it’s interesting to see how much has changed in my personal life and even in my own interests. Some friends have come and gone, but there are an important core of people who have always been present in my life, and I am privileged to have been one to know them deeply over the past four years.

Interestingly enough, it wasn’t until my junior year when I realized that I wanted to spend my life working in computer science. I remember when I walked into the classroom of my AP Computer Science teacher asking how I could get going with only one year left. Now, here I am immersing myself in digital technology in countless different ways. I feel like I am where I am meant to be.

These four years haven’t been easy either. I worked hard to get to the place I wanted to go. Despite quite a few personal challenges, I was fortunate enough to afford an education here at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Just in the semester and a half that I have been enrolled here, I’ve met countless people who have affected my life and helped shape the direction of where I’m going in the world. Special shout-out to the FOSSbox and RITlug, and everyone involved with both.

Coffee and Doughnuts 🔗

For most of 2015, I worked a not-so-typical job at Dutch Monkey Doughnuts in my hometown. Dutch Monkey is an important part of my town and they have helped create a name for people visiting the region. They’re well-known for their homemade doughnuts and Counter Culture Coffee, both of which are legendary within their own right.

During my time at Dutch Monkey, I was able to attend workshops and classes at the Counter Culture Coffee Training Center in Atlanta. Throughout the eight or nine classes I took, I was able to further my understanding and appreciation for an extremely complex and fascinating beverage. My appreciation and love for coffee has become a part of my being. The coffee industry is a wild and exciting place, and it is very much an ethical hotbed of all kinds of issues. I joke to myself that if sysadmin doesn’t work out, the coffee industry could always make a good fallback…

I was also fortunate to have some awesome co-workers who helped make the 4am shifts a little more enjoyable. Special shout-out to Jordan Hughes for the long talks about music, the music industry, and so many other things. I learned a lot from you and you’ve had a big impact on my own music tastes.

MINECON and SpigotMC 🔗

This was single-handedly one of the most profound events of the year for me. If you weren’t aware, I am a community moderator for the SpigotMC project. I have been a moderator since April 2014. Spigot is my true first open-source project, even though I wasn’t a contributor of code, but a community builder (or so I like to think).

MINECON announced 🔗

In February of 2015, Mojang announced that MINECON 2015 would be happening in London, England. Instantly, I thought there would be no way I would ever be able to afford a trip overseas for a two-day convention. However, I found the application for a MINECON Agent, which is the small group of “interns” that volunteer to help set up and prepare MINECON for over 10,000 people with the Mojang team. The only benefit to being an Agent was a waived ticket cost (around $120 last year). I applied for the program, unsure of what would come of it, doubtful I would be able to go even if I were accepted.

April rolls around, and I finally hear back from Mojang! “Congratulations, you are now a MINECON Agent!” It was difficult to believe at first, but I wasn’t sure I would be able to go regardless.

Getting in gear for MINECON 🔗

I began talking with the rest of the team at SpigotMC. We were also getting in gear for MINECON 2015 and were planning to attend as an organization with our own booth. We had arranged to have a booth and most of the team knew who was going to be there. Michael, our project lead, would be in attendance, along with Matthew, the other lead developer; Jordan, another community moderator like myself; Cindy, our local wiki staff, IRC staff, and contributing developer, or also the official “Spigot Mom”; and Miguel, our witty Spigot volunteer who has an ambiguous position with Spigot. Cindy’s son Alex was also going to be in attendance.

I didn’t think I would be able to attend. However, a very unique set of events happened one after another, and suddenly, the possibility of me attending MINECON this year began to materialize. Thanks to awesome people behind Spigot, I was fortunate enough to make it out to this year’s convention. When I figured out that I would be going to London, I was beyond stoked.

Going to London and MINECON 🔗

I would be there from Saturday, July 4 to Wednesday, July 8, 2016. Saturday and Sunday were the days of MINECON. Together with the team, we helped represent the SpigotMC project among thousands of convention-goers. We had brochures, bracelets, and a video running in the booth for visitors to take and see. I met some incredible people from our community, and I am privileged and honored to have met some incredible people there.

Thanks to Michael being the incredible individual he is, we went to a few dinners and meet-ups with others in the Minecraft community. I met two of the major Minecraft developers, Nathan (Dinnerbone) and Erik (Grum) and countless others in the YouTube and development community. It was almost unbelievable. The entire time I was in London, the experience felt surreal. Six months before this, I would never have believed any of this would ever have happened.

The Monday and Tuesday we were there, Cindy, Jordan, Alex, and I went around London doing our proper duty as tourists. We went to see Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, rode a double-decker bus, went to the Queen’s castle, and indulged in what Jordan called a “proper British meal”. On Monday night, Jordan treated me to a short trip around London hopping between bars (although everything closed so early)! We ended up crashing in some late-night diner, had a meal, and headed back for the next round of sightseeing on Tuesday.

Thanks to the team 🔗

This was truly a life-changing experience that was bestowed upon me. I was honored and privileged to have met the other members of the Spigot team that I’ve been working with for the past two years. I wouldn’t trade my time in London for anything else, and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to help host the crew this upcoming MINECON if it ends up in the northeast US.

Open Source and Fedora 🔗

I have used the Fedora operating system on my laptop since December 2013. I began using it on my desktop I built in November 2014. I have used this operating system for almost two years and I never had thought too much about the community behind the Fedora Project. I knew that it was a large and complex community, but I was never sure where to take the first step. I had always wanted to be an Ambassador, but questioned my usefulness or whether I was a right fit for the program.

Flock to Fedora! 🔗

I learned that Flock, Fedora’s annual contributor’s conference, was to be hosted in Rochester, NY in 2015 from August 5th to the 9th. I would be moving right next door to Flock just a week after the conference! After contacting a pair of people who seemed knowledgeable about the details back in February 2015, little did I know I was setting in motion an entirely new track of events in my life. The two gents I emailed, Remy DeCausemaker and Prof. Stephen Jacobs (SJ), helped give me advice on travel details and how I would get myself into Rochester in time for Flock.

Come August, I am back from MINECON, packing my bags for Rochester, and ending my last few days at Dutch Monkey. When I arrived in Rochester with my mother, it was an exciting and new experience, something I had looked forward to for a long time. Once Flock rolled around, I was almost instantaneously immersed in the Fedora community, and over the course of the week, I would begin to feel a part of a Project that I had questioned how to enter for almost a year.

The talks were fantastic, the speakers were passionate, and the community was welcoming. I was jump started into Fedora at Flock 2015, despite walking in a stranger. At first, I questioned whether coming was such a grand idea. It was obvious everyone knew someone already and I was only an excited Fedora user and fan. These were the people who did all the heavy-lifting to make this operating system and its community run. What was I doing here?

I distinctly remember Pete Travis (randomuser in IRC) coming up to me, introducing himself and asking me a few questions. In retrospect, I probably looked like I was feeling a bit out-of-place. He and I began talking a bit about his role in Fedora and some of my little experience in open source. After he spoke to me, I began to feel a little more attached to the conference. After a while, I began speaking up at some of the talks I attended, or trying to share some of my perspective or thoughts as an outsider. These were the stepping-stones that got me involved with the project.

One thing about all else stands out to me about the conference. I remember Remy saying to me towards the end (with minor paraphrasing), “You should check out this Community Operations thing that’s coming up soon. It’s going to be awesome.”

Fedora Magazine 🔗

Over the course of the next few months at RIT, I started working with Paul Frields, Ryan Lerch, and a few others on the Fedora Magazine. I began contributing as a writer, with my first article about using Spigot on Fedora. As time went on, I began helping as an editor, revising and reviewing other people’s articles to help get them published for the Magazine. By the end of 2015, I believe I would come to establish myself as a permanent member of the editorial team behind the Magazine.

CommOps 🔗

Additionally, during the months after Flock, I would follow up on what Remy told me, and I checked out this whole Community Operations (shortened to CommOps) thing. It was in the early formation stages, but the core idea behind CommOps was that they were the supporting team to offer support to all the other sub-projects in Fedora. Or in my eyes, a team focused on building and supporting the community with resources and assistance. This was something I thought I could contribute to. My programming skills were not at a level where I’d feel comfortable hacking on to Fedora either on the Infrastructure or as a Packager. But CommOps was that kind of thing that hooked me from the start. I wanted to help build Fedora up, and I could see what exactly CommOps was trying to target and how it was wanting to fix the long-term issues.

Now, months later, my involvement with CommOps has resulted with many tickets filed and many tickets closed. It has been a productive time while I have been with CommOps, and I never feel like there is too little to do. Our horizon is vast and there is much work to be done… 2016 offers great promise to the success of our sub-project, which in turn offers great promise to the Fedora Project. I am looking forward to seeing where this year takes us. I am also happy to work with such an awesome and dedicated group of people as those behind the CommOps team. There are too many to name, but I’m thankful for the leadership of Remy to keep us all together, focused, and driven.

2016 🔗

2016 will have a lot of ground to cover over 2015, but there is a large potential for this to be done. My own personal story with open source continues to grow, and I am beyond excited for what the future may bring. I am exposed to a unique group of people and minds here at RIT, and I am actively pursuing the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) minor.

This self-reflection has turned into a much longer post than I anticipated, but I think this reflection is necessary and useful for my own purposes. Taking a moment to reflect on the events of the past year helps remind me what it’s all about and why I’m doing what I’m doing, especially at the times where everything seems confusing and I begin to question what I’m doing. But the path is illuminated and I am driven to succeed. There are a lot of things at stake for me and my family, and I hope to be able to meet many personal goals and better support the people closest to me in my life.

I would also like to give a special thanks to all the people who have made this year so incredible for me, and for those who have ridden the ride with me. There are so many names to list, and it’s hard to come up with this list in the dark hours of the morning when I know I should be sleeping. But to all of those who play a special and important role in my life, I want you all to know that none of what has happened to me would be possible without your support. Your continued guidance, counsel, and companionship teaches me much and inspires me greatly. My only wish is that I will someday be able to repay all the good deeds that others have bestowed upon me. If not to the original giver, I hope to someday inspire others and help others in the same way you all have shown and taught me. Maybe this is less of a 2016 thing and more of a “crystal ball into the future” moment… but I think it’s worth mentioning regardless.

Thanks for a fantastic 2015. I’m looking forward to seeing where 2016 takes us next.

The popular Voice Over IP (VoIP) program, Mumble, is being repackaged again for Fedora 22 and 23. Fedora contributor fedpop unretired the package from the Fedora Package Database and is working on getting it added to the stable repositories.

Mumble is available for testing for Fedora 22 and 23 users. Once enough positive feedback is received, it will be added back to the stable repositories for all users. Testers are welcome, especially for Fedora 22!

How to test Mumble 🔗

To test, open a command line and run the following command.

$ sudo dnf install mumble --enablerepo=updates-testing

Confirm the installation and the application will appear on your system. Give it a run and make sure everything works as expected! If it all checks out, leave feedback for the build in Bodhi so the package. This helps move it closer to being packaged for the stable repositories (links are below).

For help enabling the testing repository, see the QA Testing wiki article.

Why I love Mumble 🔗

Mumble is a package I originally installed when I first began using Fedora in Fedora 20. It is one of the few major VoIP clients that can be classified as “FOSS” (Free and Open Source) and is available on multiple platforms. It’s fairly simple to get a server (Murmur) up and running, and it’s a great way for communicating over voice with friends, family, or communities. I used to use it often when I was active in various Minecraft server communities, and for a short time, I used it for my own Minecraft community as well.

When it originally disappeared in Fedora 21, I was disappointed since Mumble is an important piece of software that I think is important in any modern Linux distribution. Finally, Fedora users will once again be able to seamlessly install it without having to manually compile the software.

Big hat tip to fedpop for repackaging this awesome piece of software! This also seems to be his first experience as a Fedora packager, so a big welcome goes out to him as well. I can’t wait to start recommending Mumble again for Fedora users.

Find it in Bodhi 🔗

Fedora 22

Fedora 23