Free Software, the Open Web, and You

Audience: Universal - humans preferred, pets welcome.

Abstract

Imagine a world in which the tools we use to express ourselves have an opinion on what we're saying. That the sound system in a conference decides to not relay sound to certain members of the audience - or to relay its own version: shifted, biased, or irrelevant. Now imagine that your glasses, or the pages of a newspaper had a similarly regrettable excess of personality.

It really doesn't take a lot of imagination, does it? Because we're living it. Today.

We will explore how we are, all of us, in the publishing business. We are building the tools of agency, expression and sense-making.

Free Software - like Drupal - enables safety, trust, and equity, required for dialogue, collaboration and action in our communities.

• How can we enable and empower an internet for all its users, not select gatekeepers?
• How can we keep the Internet's incentives and implementations aligned with the public good?

What we do can be more than a job. It can be a civic responsibility, and an act of both service and leadership.