00:36:06 <decause> #startmeeting PearlHacks2016-TechTalk
00:36:06 <zodbot> Meeting started Sun Apr  3 00:36:06 2016 UTC.  The chair is decause. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
00:36:06 <zodbot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic.
00:36:06 <zodbot> The meeting name has been set to 'pearlhacks2016-techtalk'
00:36:16 <decause> #topic How Open Source Works
00:36:23 <decause> Open source is taking over teh world
00:36:26 <decause> Open source is a cookie
00:36:32 <decause> a delicious chocolate chip cookie
00:36:41 <decause> it is better than just any cookie
00:36:45 <decause> it comes with a recipe card
00:36:50 <decause> that tells you what went into the cookies
00:37:08 <decause> doesn't anyone here know anyone with alergies or dietary restrictions?
00:37:16 <decause> everybody does, right?
00:37:38 <decause> the nice thing about getting these cookies from your friends is you can actually look and say "eww, almonds, those will kill me."
00:37:41 <decause> or
00:37:48 <decause> "hey, I'd like raisins in this"
00:38:00 <decause> you can always add raisins, make your own verison of the cookie
00:38:03 <decause> furthermore, and better yet
00:38:22 <decause> you can take your new-and-improved cookies, and distribute those to your friends with the recipe
00:38:28 <decause> Open source means:
00:38:31 <decause> 1) You can look at th recipe
00:38:37 <decause> 2) You can change the recipe
00:38:46 <decause> 3) you can redistribute the recipe
00:38:57 <decause> You may like Oreos
00:39:12 <decause> but if you run out of them on a late night, you can't make more of them
00:39:15 <decause> you have to go buy more of them
00:39:39 <decause> or if Nabisco decides to stop making your favorite triple-stuff oreos, you can't get them anymore
00:39:50 <decause> we call that "vendor lock-in"
00:39:58 <decause> the vendor decides, and you can't do anyting about it
00:40:00 <decause> sure
00:40:11 <decause> there is an ingredients list, but it isn't a recipe
00:40:21 <decause> you cannot examine it like you can the cookies your friend made you
00:40:32 <decause> #topic Open Source is like a car
00:40:44 <decause> Would you buy a car with the hood welded shut?
00:40:46 <decause> no way!
00:41:09 <decause> what would happen if your radiator sprung a leak? or something else went wrong?
00:41:16 <decause> you couldn't do anything, cause the hood is welded shut
00:41:20 <decause> you couldn't fix it yourself
00:41:39 <decause> but when you buy proprietary software, we think it's ok?
00:41:45 <decause> we find this mysterious, and amazing
00:42:00 <decause> I've been thinking about this slide
00:42:07 <decause> sometimes there are stickers now on products
00:42:15 <decause> "No user-serviceable parts inside"
00:42:29 <decause> "warranty voided if seal is broken"
00:42:36 <decause> that didn't used to be so common
00:42:42 <decause> #topic Open Innovation
00:42:53 <decause> if you were to zoom out from Open Source Software, you find innovation
00:43:03 <decause> the idea of copyright, and patent, and trademark
00:43:11 <decause> those are relatively new
00:43:18 <decause> Open Innovation is building on the ideas of others
00:43:22 <decause> you don't start from scratch
00:43:30 <decause> you start from where the last person's experiments left off
00:43:37 <decause> that is how acadmics works
00:43:43 <decause> if we work together, we are smarter
00:43:51 <decause> what are teh core concepts of open innovation?
00:43:53 <decause> 1) Share
00:43:57 <decause> 2) Collaboration
00:44:12 <decause> 3) Publication?
00:44:19 <decause> we're taught to share from the beginning
00:44:53 <decause> collaboration is 'the more people working on a problem, the better your solution will be"
00:45:00 <decause> "two heads are better than one"
00:45:04 <decause> 3) Remix
00:45:10 <decause> you all have grown up in a remix culture
00:45:27 <decause> you've never not known a time when you couldn't add filters and stickers to pictures, or download and modify files
00:45:30 <decause> that is the entire idea
00:45:38 <decause> you take thing A, and thing B, and they are better
00:45:51 <decause> the whole is greater than the sum of the parts
00:46:00 <decause> you folks have a better handle on remix than many folks my age
00:46:12 <decause> I can't turn on the radio, and not hear a snippet of a song I recognize
00:46:20 <decause> #topic Terminology
00:46:29 <decause> these words are important
00:46:49 <decause> 1) Copyright - The legal rights granted to the creator of an original work by law
00:46:55 <decause> #info Copyright - The legal rights granted to the creator of an original work by law
00:47:25 <decause> #info Legalese - A cryptic Language used by lawyers which seems to resemble English from a distance, but is not actually English.
00:47:58 <decause> #info Software License - A document written in Legalese which tells the user what they can (and cannot) do with the software they possess.
00:48:42 <decause> * takes a break for everyone to write a haiku or make a doodle
00:49:14 <decause> a work of art, any work of art, a haiku, a doodle, a song you sing into the voice recorder
00:49:23 <decause> it is copyrighted the moment you fix it into a medium
00:49:35 <decause> a notebook or cocktail napkin, or doodle on a wall (dont do that though)
00:49:38 <decause> it is copyrighted
00:49:46 <decause> you don't need to put the (c) next to it, or tell the gov't
00:49:51 <decause> it is copyrighted automatically
00:50:01 <decause> you need a picture of an icecream sunday
00:50:30 <decause> so you google, and you searched for an image, found one, and copy/pasted it into your presentation
00:50:38 <decause> did you just use a copyrighted image?
00:50:39 <decause> yes
00:50:46 <decause> but there are some exceptions where you can use it
00:51:06 <decause> some images can be released from copyright after it has been public for certain length of time
00:51:28 <decause> Software Licenses - you download the installer, you run it, and then what happens?
00:51:44 <decause> a pop-up of pages and pages of text that tells you what you can and cannot do with it
00:52:00 <decause> the Terms and Conditions (TOS) say very particularly what you can run it for
00:52:11 <decause> companies pay lawyers a great deal of money to write these terms and conditions
00:52:19 <decause> then, we get to this amazing magic trick
00:52:25 <decause> #topic Best Legal Hack Ever
00:52:41 <decause> This suite, or bunch of Open Source Licenses
00:52:46 <decause> there are lots of them
00:52:55 <decause> but you may only run into like 10-20 regularly
00:53:08 <decause> they make it really easy to telling someone what they can do, in addition to running the software
00:53:17 <decause> you can download run change and redistribute teh code
00:53:32 <decause> there are 2 main kinds of Free/Open Source Software licenses
00:53:43 <decause> they have different names, depending on which ones you like
00:53:54 <decause> Viral Licenses, or Copyleft licenses
00:54:16 <decause> they require that not only can you do all those things, but that when you do redistribute the software, you do it under the same license you got it with
00:54:25 <decause> it keeps the software Free
00:54:45 <decause> the most popular example of a non-copyleft license is the MIT license
00:55:03 <decause> you can take it, and change the license, and even close up your code
00:55:14 <decause> whehter people will pay for it is another story
00:55:26 <decause> #topic Why is it a big deal?
00:55:32 <decause> Why do we care?
00:56:14 <decause> this is a graphic, of a movie that is a parody of big business (with Vince Vaughn)
00:56:33 <decause> it i scolored about 90%, because about 90% of businesses use Open Source Software
00:56:41 <decause> all 50 states use Open Source Software
00:56:54 <decause> 6 out of 8 devs will work with Open Source Software in their career
00:57:01 <decause> even in a proprietary company
00:57:05 <decause> you'll probably use it one way or another
00:57:22 <decause> #topic Why do Businesses use Open Source Software?
00:57:33 <decause> Blackduck in 2007 did a survey
00:57:41 <decause> responses were mostly "low cost"
00:57:49 <decause> in 2013, it was "higher quality"
00:57:54 <decause> that is a huge change
00:58:06 <decause> it used to be LInux was mostly used in places to cut corners or pinch pennies
00:58:18 <decause> now it is thought of as more secure and faster moving
00:58:21 <decause> in academics
00:58:26 <decause> if you do research in graduate school
00:58:36 <decause> one thing that is intersting to me is "open access"
00:58:43 <decause> Open Source, applied to publications
00:59:15 <decause> Research should not be locked up behind paywalls in journals
00:59:41 <decause> in my former job, many of hte people we worked with, they were in Africa and India, and places that didn't have large amounts of bandwidth
00:59:45 <decause> but needed the updated information more
00:59:55 <decause> and weren't going to conferences each year like in the US
01:00:06 <decause> so you'd have to subscribe to these journals
01:00:31 <decause> and we, at my non-profit, were looking at ways to get that research into the hands of these needful folks, without running awry of the copyright laws
01:00:52 <decause> the cost of journals have skyrocketed
01:01:07 <decause> there is a CHemistry journal that costs $40K/year
01:01:18 <decause> libraries cannot keep up with the costs of current knowlege
01:01:20 <decause> in some cases
01:01:29 <decause> #topic How is Open Source different?
01:01:44 <decause> The open source principles, there are 5 of them, and you see them phrased in diff ways in lots of places
01:01:47 <decause> they are familiar
01:02:01 <decause> #info Open Exchange - share info so people can find it. Things should be transparent
01:02:18 <decause> #info Participation - When we are free to collaborate, we create.
01:02:47 <decause> #info Rapid Prototyping - Release early and often. Can lead to rapid failure, bu tthat leads to rapid fixes. Fail fast, fail forward.
01:03:10 <decause> #info Meritocracy - The best ideas win. This may be the last time you are in a meritocracy in school
01:03:47 <decause> what matters in class is whether you know the material, or know the right answers. it doesn't matter what clothes you wear, or what your name is, or you're the obnoxious person raising your hand every 2 minutes (I was) it only matters that you konw the material
01:03:51 <decause> the right answer wins
01:04:05 <decause> when you get into the land of corporate, that is not the truth, and it was a rude awakening for me
01:04:11 <decause> my first job was at a big TelCo company
01:04:23 <decause> I was the only person who knew the web in 1994 at the company
01:04:35 <decause> I was flown to Canada for my first big meeting, with all these VP's
01:04:54 <decause> one said "we can do this thing on the website in a complicated and expensive way"
01:05:11 <decause> I said "I think we can do it in an easier way, and it will give you the same thing"
01:05:19 <decause> I thought I saved a bunch of money for the company
01:05:21 <decause> but
01:05:55 <decause> the next break, i got pulled into the hall, and my VP, a woman said "Don't ever do that again. that was a good idea, but you can't speak up like that again. You have to go through the right channels."
01:06:05 <decause> write an email, pass a note, but don't speak up
01:06:36 <decause> I spent the next 6 years trying to figure out how to be me in a corporate environment, where I'm loud, and opinionated, and cannot stand to see something done wrong.
01:06:39 <decause> I learned
01:06:43 <decause> I learned how to befriend the right people
01:06:46 <decause> how to present your ideas
01:06:52 <decause> to build support behind the scenes
01:07:04 <decause> to make sure everyone knows what you're going to say before you say it to everyone
01:07:09 <decause> I learned
01:07:37 <decause> but in many big companies, it is not a meritocracy, it is a hierarchy
01:07:54 <decause> it doesn't matter if it is the worst idea ever. if the VP says we're doing it this way, we do it that way
01:07:57 <decause> by contrast
01:08:05 <decause> I was at my first meeting at Red Hat
01:08:09 <decause> flown up to Boston
01:08:15 <decause> the CTO says, we're going to do this
01:08:17 <decause> I'm a peon
01:08:36 <decause> and another peon says "that is a stupid idea, it won't work because XYZ"
01:08:42 <decause> CTO says "tell me more bout that"
01:08:51 <decause> my heart was pounding
01:08:55 <decause> I thought that person would get fired
01:09:00 <decause> they didn't
01:09:01 <decause> the best ideas win
01:09:10 <decause> there is a company wide mailing list
01:09:14 <decause> where everyone is there, listening
01:09:18 <decause> all the way up to the CEO
01:09:35 <decause> the best idea wins, whether it comes from the bottom, or the top
01:09:46 <decause> #info Community - together we can do more
01:10:03 <decause> #topic Community Centric Model
01:10:08 <decause> We have these communities
01:10:12 <decause> upstream communities
01:10:21 <decause> Remy in the back
01:10:30 <decause> he works as the Fedora COmmunity Lead
01:10:33 <decause> hearding cats
01:10:37 <decause> to shepherd the work along
01:10:44 <decause> you can join Fedora development community tonight
01:10:46 <decause> anyone can
01:10:52 <decause> Fedora eventually turns into RHEL
01:10:57 <decause> and that is what we sell support for
01:11:05 <decause> that is guaranteed to work for 7-10 years
01:11:09 <decause> that happens because
01:11:15 <decause> Fedora works really quickly
01:11:23 <decause> released every 6 months, give or take
01:11:31 <decause> and RHEL is released every 2-3 years, give or take
01:11:58 <decause> and then RHEL takes the best parts of Fedora, tested in every which way, and then packages them
01:12:04 <decause> those things turn into the downstream product
01:12:18 <decause> lets say you heard we are a good company, and you wanna come work here
01:12:28 <decause> the quickest tracks into Red Hat, are often working on Upstream Projects
01:12:43 <decause> if you already know how to do engineering in Fedora, it is not too far a stretch to think you can do it in RHEL too
01:13:05 <decause> there is a community of lots of people, working on this thing, and you can work on it first, and then get paid to work on it!
01:13:08 <decause> doubleplusgood
01:13:14 <decause> #topic Getting Involved
01:13:18 <decause> how do you start?
01:13:25 <decause> the quickest and easiest way, is to fix a bug
01:13:32 <decause> OpenHatch is an org that tracks bugs
01:13:42 <decause> they keep track of the type of the bug, and what technology it relates to
01:13:46 <decause> you can go and browse for a bug
01:14:11 <decause> and then each bug also has a mentor assigned to it, so that if you get stuck, there is someone you can ask for help
01:14:14 <decause> it is a great way to get started
01:14:30 <decause> if you want to jump into a big project where you meet lots of people,a nd get a bigger picture
01:14:40 <decause> it has been my experience, and the experience of some profs we've worked with
01:14:49 <decause> that Humanitarian FOSS projects are good ones to work with
01:15:00 <decause> becuase they are out to do good, and friendly to new contirbutors
01:15:19 <decause> Ushahidi, OpenMRS, Sahana, GNOME
01:15:41 <decause> medical records systems are very expensive
01:15:51 <decause> but developing countries need to have systems
01:16:11 <decause> so, OpenMRS helps doctors in those countries
01:16:36 <decause> MouseTrap is a project that tracks your eye movements, so that if you cannot use a mouse, it will control the pointer by eye movement
01:16:51 <decause> accessibility projects are often very friendly to new-comers too
01:17:00 <decause> #topic Starting your own project
01:17:04 <decause> it is hardest probably
01:17:05 <decause> but
01:17:17 <decause> when you're building an open source project, the first thing you do is release the code
01:17:24 <decause> and the second thing is getting your second contributor
01:17:33 <decause> when you tell the story of how you got there
01:17:42 <decause> I wanted to do this, but it didn't work, so I tried that
01:17:54 <decause> when the next person comes thorugh, they see that project's history, andyour project's personality
01:17:59 <decause> and then you spend less time explaining
01:18:03 <decause> blog about what your'e doing
01:18:08 <decause> put your code on a forge
01:18:11 <decause> github or elsewhere
01:18:15 <decause> put an open license on it
01:18:19 <decause> and build your community
01:18:20 <decause> how?
01:18:29 <decause> reach out to like minded people
01:19:01 <decause> use open data so other can contribute to it, and use an open API so people can use it
01:19:15 <decause> #link http://www.theopensourceway.org
01:19:27 <decause> it is a book/website that tells you how to do this stuff right
01:19:34 <decause> #topic QandA
01:20:16 <decause> Q: How do you get started?
01:20:24 <decause> A: Anyone can fix a documentation bug.
01:20:34 <decause> all projects, in theory, should have instructions for installation
01:20:42 <decause> if you cannot follow those instructions, file a bug
01:20:54 <decause> for most open source projects, the docs themselves can be a place to contribute
01:21:01 <decause> fixing typos counts bigtime
01:21:09 <decause> it builds your cred
01:21:29 <decause> when I started working on Open Source, one of the projects was launching a new website
01:21:37 <decause> I knew websites, so that is what I started with
01:21:42 <decause> that was my contribution
01:23:15 <decause> if you're interested in a project, go to a project, go through their docs, and if they don't work, file a bug
01:24:01 <decause> the fella who did the GitHub seminar today, David, he wrote his own musical programming language
01:24:09 <decause> he 'scratched his own itch'
01:26:34 * decause talks about Outreachy and OpenHatch
01:27:03 <decause> Karen Sandler, who helps run Outreachy, I saw her speak at a conference
01:27:14 <decause> I told her I wanted to speak at a conference, but didn't know if I had much to say
01:27:34 <decause> everyone was giving technical talks, and all I know was web strategy, and I figured no one wanted to hear that
01:27:41 <decause> Karen said "you're talking now"
01:27:48 <decause> I spoke at 15 big conferences last year
01:27:56 <decause> because Karen helped to support me
01:28:08 <decause> #endmeetingt
01:28:11 <decause> #endmeeting