Keynote Speakers

Speakers

Stewarding technological freedom in agriculture

: Saturday 14:30 - 15:15 : Patriot
: Free Software in practice

Farming is one of humanity’s oldest technologies, and while the principles of free software may only seem relevant to the past 70 years of innovation, farmers have been struggling to keep their technology free for the last 12 millennia. In this session, we’ll look at some scenarios of where this truth has been borne out in our work creating free farm management software with farmOS, and deploying free hardware solutions with Edge Collective. These projects have shown us that the principles of free software can and do make a real difference to farming communities, both large and small, across the globe. Whether it’s by preserving the right to repair tractors, sensors and other equipment on their farm, or by enshrining their right to access, store, and share their valuable data when, where, and how they choose, granting farmers with more freedom leads to better outcomes for the communities who rely on them.

Michael Stenta

Michael Stenta is the founder and lead developer of farmOS, a free software farm planning and record-keeping system.

This session will feature two additional panelists:

* Jamie Gaehring has worked on farms and at farmers' markets for most of the last two decades, and today, builds frontend software for farmers with farmOS.

* Don Blair builds free software-compatible hardware systems for agriculture in collaboration with farmers and researchers.

All three presenters are members of the Gathering for Open Ag Tech (GOAT / goatech.org).

Diversity in free software projects: A statistical analysis

: Saturday 15:25 - 16:10 : Patriot
: Social context

Following our studies on the Turing Award and SoundCloud ("Behind the curtains of diversity at a technology company"), we now turn to diversity and free software projects. In this study, we applied the same methods of inquiry that are commonplace in most sciences: statistics and critical analysis.

A variety of free software projects -- both big and small -- will be reviewed from the point of view of their ability to include a diverse set of contributors. A statistical analysis will be provided, the datasets will be made public, and recommendations will be attempted.

Camille Akmut

Camille Akmut is a researcher.

Lessons learned from cultivating free software projects and communities

: Saturday 13:35 - 14:20 : Back Bay Grand
: Community

Over the last decade, I’ve had the privilege professionally of building and cultivating some free software projects and communities. This isn’t a tools talk: this is a talk about the soft skills you have to have to be able to succeed as a leader in an free software project. I’ve learned a ton on this journey; honestly I still am learning, but I have some lessons to share, and hopefully, I can warn attendees about pitfalls that can cause wasted cycles and pain. Topics will include scoping your project, personally-backed versus corporate-backed projects, why empathy and audience is important, celebrations, defeats, successful traits of free software projects, and more.

JJ Asghar

JJ works on the IBM cloud as a developer advocate. He’s focusing on the IBM Kubernetes service, trying to help companies and users have a successful onboarding to the Cloud Native ecosystem.

He lives and grew up in Austin, Texas. He enjoys a good strong stout, a hoppy IPA, and Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld, and Factorio. He’s a member of the Church of Emacs, though he jumps into Vim on remote machines. He usually chooses Ubuntu over CentOS, but secretly wants FreeBSD everywhere. He’s always trying to become a better Ruby developer, but experiments with Go, Python, and only when he has to, Node. A father and husband, if he’s not trying to automate his job away, he’s always trying to convince his daughters to “be button makers, not button pushers.”

Why do government projects struggle to produce free software?

: Saturday 16:20 - 17:05 : Patriot
: Free software in Government

Government projects generally either do not attempt, or struggle to produce, free software. Projects often utilize free software components, but seldom attempt to create their own. The challenge is helping government entities understand and prioritize the importance of using public resources to create public goods, as well as how to create policy, budgetary, and legal environments which enable projects to produce free software. This discussion focuses on systemic factors which impede the creation of free software in the public sector, and strategies to improve outcomes.

Tony Fortenberry

Tony Fortenberry was the director of the California Child Welfare Digital Services (CWDS) project from 2016-2018. With a budget of approximately $500M and more than 300 team members, CWDS was the largest US government digital services initiative attempting to leverage free software components, Agile methodology, and user-centered design to produce a free software product licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License.

Prior to serving in the California state government, Tony was CIO at the City of Northglenn and CTO at Communication Service for the Deaf. He is currently the founder and executive director at Open Solutions For Government, a nonprofit organization.

Free software and the digital divide

: Sunday 13:35 - 14:20 : Back Bay Grand
: Social context

Free Geek Toronto is a nonprofit organization that seeks out unwanted electronics donations for reuse, primarily using free software. Our model focuses on building digital inclusion by accessible technology while also providing skills building and employment opportunities to community members facing barriers to participation. This also reduces the waste that ends up in landfills, and helps combat the problem of lack of access to personal computing devices, which is necessary to close the digital divide.

This presentation focuses on the positives, challenges, and ongoing conversation around using free software to bridge the digital divide, specifically on barriers to entry regarding the level of digital literacy required to complete daily tasks using free software, involving people in the circular economy model of technology reuse, and what possible solutions exist or can be developed.

Ryan Fukunaga

Ryan is the executive director of Free Geek Toronto, an employment social enterprise focused on increasing digital inclusion in Toronto through the reuse of electronic equipment. Working here has allowed Ryan to focus on his interests in capacity building, fostering a DIY/hacker/maker
ethos, environmental stewardship, and building technological resiliency for marginalized communities.

For the past five years, he has also been the project lead of Digital Storytelling Toronto, an initiative aimed at increasing digital literacy through storytelling in community and nonprofit organizations. Through this work, he has completed projects with the University of Toronto Scarborough, Brock University, East Scarborough Storefront, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, and Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital.

Ryan holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto, and a Bachelor of Education from the University of Windsor, along with years of experience managing small business IT infrastructure.

Free software enables free science

: Saturday 15:25 - 16:10 : Freedom
: Community

The principles of free software encourage and enable free science. This talk will cover one academic's experience with free software in academia. The major takeaway is that the principles of free software make for good science. The talk will cover topics on free software development for research purposes, including dissemination and evaluation, as well as teaching, both for supporting education and for teaching about the tools themselves. I will go over (1) how free software has supported my own research by enabling sharing and integration of multiple research projects; (2) how free software is (or is not) used in the academic literature and the effects on repeatability; and (3) how I integrate free software tools in my own courses.

Paul Gazillo

Paul Gazzillo is an assistant professor of computer science at University of Central Florida. His research aims to make it easier to develop safe and secure software, and it spans programming languages, security, software engineering, and systems. Projects include analysis of configurable systems, side-channel attack detection, and concurrent smart contracts.

Bicycles as a metaphor for free software

: Saturday 14:30 - 15:15 : Freedom
: Exploring Free Software concepts

While riding from Seattle to Bellingham, from my biking community to my GNU/Linux community, I considered just how freeing each transition had been. Historically, biking has been associated with many things including health, happiness, and feminism. What about free software?

During the next 45 minutes, we will explore the free engineering, grassroots innovation, hands-on learning, hidden dangers, bright horizons, and overall rad routes that both free software and bicycles cover mile by mile, together.

This ride through history, including the past, present, and future, will leave both free software and cycling enthusiasts with a deeper understanding of what it is that "sparks joy" within members of each group.

Join me in an exploration of excitement, engineering, and freedom as we take this journey on two-wheeled, self-powered transportation and transformation!

Wm Salt Hale

William “Salt” Hale is a kilted globetrottter, a free software advocate, lifelong hacker, and Seattle local who studies technology and society at the University of Washington (UW) Department of Communication, and is the community director at Snowdrift.coop. He attends, organizes, and speaks worldwide at conferences, conventions, events, festivals, and faires, and he speaks on various topics including communication, crowdmatching, Internet technologies, GNU/Linux, music, sci-fi/fantasy, security, and windsports. Salt is very approachable, and will always be found wearing a kilt.

Rented future: The dangerous rise of life as a service

: Saturday 10:40 - 11:25 : Freedom
: Exploring Free Software concepts

We are entering the post-ownership age. In recent years, the Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS) model, which is already dominant in many areas of consumer software, has begun to spread into other aspects of our lives. It will soon be, if it isn't already, possible to live without actually owning possessions. You can now get your clothes, electronics and food -- among many other items -- on subscription, as well as real-world services such as laundry and transport. In time, we are set to see a handful of companies renting you everything you rely on, and that gives them incredible power, not only in terms of your possessions, but also in terms of their ideological control over you and the wider population. This session explores the potential damage of the Life as a Service (LaaS) model, and what free software can do to help.

Lucy Ingham

Lucy Ingham is a technology journalist and the editor of the Web site and digital magazine "Verdict." She is the former editor of the futurist site "Factor," and she specializes in exploring how technology is shaping the world we live in.

Field notes from a digital rights activist

: Saturday 11:35 - 12:20 : Freedom
: Social context

Drawing on their work doing privacy workshops, art exhibitions, and free software advocacy, Giselle will discuss community building strategies and heuristics in two seemingly different environments, the US and China. They will examine cultural perspectives, and reflect on those experiences to help us better understand ourselves and how to communicate with others to grow the free software movement.

Giselle Jhunjhnuwala

Giselle is an artist, self-taught programmer, and Outreachy alumna. They like to explore the intersections of art, science, and technology, and have been exclusively using free software in their practice for several years. They have worked in technology and at an import/export multinational company, which enabled them to travel back and forth between China and the US. They are a member of the Pittsburgh Restore the Fourth chapter, The Big Idea (a collectively run bookstore), and the Stranger Company Art Collective. In their spare time, they volunteer for various free software projects such as Mediawiki, and write songs about PGP. They have exhibited at a number of private and state galleries in China, as well as in the US.

Transparent code, secure data: Selling free software to the US Government, our bosses, and ourselves

: Saturday 10:40 - 11:25 : Patriot
: Free software in Government

How many times have you heard someone say that free software seems insecure, that it’s buggy, that it’s a pain to install or use, or that it just looks unprofessional? We love using and championing free software, but how do we sell it in our work? How do we convince clients that free software is professional, secure, reliable, and useful? And how do we help them learn about the ethical and moral value of free software, and empower them to share that message? In this session, we’ll talk through our methods of promoting free software in government digital services projects. We’ll share some wins, some not so successful attempts, and some future initiatives, and talk about how you can make changes at your own organizations. And we’ll share our git repo with some playbooks and strategies for those who want to bring this work back to their own companies!

Karen Johnson

Karen Johnson is curious, self-motivated, and addicted to learning. She keeps software systems healthy, and is constantly looking for ways to automate, standardize, and improve the way they work. She is known for tackling hard problems and coming up with creative, repeatable solutions.

Karen studied art history at Bard College, but soon fell in love with technology systems (especially GNU/Linux) -- so she followed her heart and became a tech nerd. She’s also a darn good tango dancer, and an enthusiastic reader of science fiction.

This talk will be co-presented with Fen Labalme, who loves to create solutions for problems before they arise. His current mission is to empower better government by delivering free software security and compliance solutions that improve upon previous proprietary systems. He’s also working on automating the ATO process, making it easier for agencies to do business securely. He applies over twenty years of IT experience (and a relentless sense of humor) to mentor CivicActions engineers in creating modern, secure systems for clients.

Fen is a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP) and a long-time advocate of handling information wisely. His computer science and electrical engineering thesis at MIT presaged the privacy concerns facing today’s Internet and social media platforms. His close-knit family enjoys traveling to historic locations, campaigning for a greener Earth, and playing/cheering at hockey games.

The GPL is great for companies

: Sunday 14:30 - 15:15 : Back Bay Grand
: Licensing

In the last few years, a lot of companies have claimed that free software licenses are bad for business, or that it's not possible to build a successful startup and company around free software. This talk explains why this is fundamentally wrong, and that it’s absolutely possible to build a working startup and company on top of a free software product. We will discuss how companies like Red Hat, SUSE, and Nextcloud all manage to have 100% free software products, which include big contributor communities, but are still able to pay developers and grow.

Frank Karlitschek

Frank Karlitschek is a longtime free software contributor, and former board member of the KDE e.V. He founded ownCloud in 2010, and its successor, Nextcloud, in 2016, to create a fully free software and decentralized alternative to big centralized cloud companies. Frank was an invited expert at the W3C, to help to create the ActivityPub standard. Frank has spoken at MIT, CERN, Harvard, and ETH, and keynoted LinuxCon, Latinoware, FOSSASIA, Campus Party, and many other conferences. Frank is the founder and CEO of Nextcloud GmbH. He is also a fellow of Open Forum Europe, and an advisor to the United Nations.

Public Money? Public Code! A campaign framework to promote software freedom

: Sunday 10:40 - 11:25 : Back Bay Grand
: Free software in Government

Do you want to promote free software in public administrations? Then the campaign framework of "Public Money? Public Code!" might be the right choice for you. In this European Union campaign, more than 170 organizations and more than 26,000 individuals have come together to demand that publicly financed software should be made publicly available under free software licenses. Together, we contacted politicians and civil servants on all levels -- from the European Union and national governments to city mayors and the heads of public libraries -- about this demand. This effort started with important discussions about software freedom with decision makers, and has already resulted in specific policy changes.

In this talk, I will explain how the campaign framework can be used to push for the adoption of free software-friendly policies in your area.

Matthias Kirschner

Matthias Kirschner is the president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). In 1999, he started using GNU/Linux, and realized that software is deeply involved in all aspects of our lives, and this convinced him that technology has to empower society, not restrict it. While studying political and administrative science, he joined FSFE in 2004.

He helps other organizations, companies, and governments to understand how they can benefit from free software -- which gives everybody the rights to use, understand, adapt and share software -- and how those rights help to support freedom of speech, freedom of press, and our right to privacy.

Reconciling all of our social justice causes: Software freedom, and the rest

: Saturday 14:30 - 15:15 : Back Bay Grand
: Social context

Serious software freedom activists aren't typically "single issue" folks. Furthermore, now that software is essential to modern work and living, software freedom, which was once a mostly isolated issue, intersects daily with other serious and important causes on a regular basis.

We now have seen a strong movement demanding a new wave of licenses, which are undoubtedly nonfree, but have their "heart in the right place" in their desire to stop oppression and mistreatment of others. Once it was a fringe licensing question, but now, how software freedom interacts with other causes is the meta-issue of our day.

This talk will be a mostly personal story of how I have personally reconciled my other social justice causes and activist concerns (such as vegetarianism) with my work in free software. I will provide some concrete suggestions on how to balance activism for other causes you care about while keeping software freedom as your primary focus.

Bradley Kuhn

Bradley M. Kuhn is the policy fellow and hacker-in-residence at Software Freedom Conservancy, and editor in chief of copyleft.org. Kuhn began his work in the software freedom movement as a volunteer in 1992, and was an early adopter of GNU/Linux systems. Kuhn's nonprofit career began in 2000 at the FSF. As FSF's executive director from 2001-2005, Kuhn led FSF's GPL enforcement, and invented the Affero GPL. Kuhn began as Conservancy's primary volunteer from 2006-2010, and was its first staff person. Kuhn holds a summa cum laude BS in computer science from Loyola University in Maryland, and an MS in computer science from the University of Cincinnati.

Keeping secrets: What you need to know about encryption

: Saturday 11:35 - 12:20 : Back Bay Grand
: Exploring Free Software concepts

From ciphers to cybersecurity, encryption is all around us. We rely on digital security while we bank, shop, and communicate. At the core of that security lies encryption. As developers, we use some form of encryption in our work every day. Maybe we are storing or sending data online, implementing authentication protocols, or protecting our customers' payment information.

This talk will cover the basics of a topic extensive enough to spend years studying. What is encryption? How does it work? Why is it important? You can expect to come away with a solid understanding of the foundational concepts of encryption. We will also take a little bit of time to peek into the future of encryption, where things are getting exciting!

DeeDee Lavinder

DeeDee Lavinder currently works as a backend engineer, and is a director of Women Who Code Raleigh/Durham. The juxtaposition of analytical thinking and creative problem solving is where she is happiest, and she is particularly thrilled about working in that sweet spot while writing code. When something is hard, she goes deep to understand -- ask her about encoding! When not coding, you can find her listening to audiobooks, driving small people around town, or coordinating something somewhere.

Secure Scuttlebutt: Peer-to-peer collaboration and community infrastructure

: Sunday 15:25 - 16:10 : Patriot
: Free Software in practice

Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB) is a technology for decentralized, peer-to-peer, offline-first social media applications based on cryptographic identities. In this session, we will introduce the SSB network and protocol. We will present some of the applications on the network for social networking, games, and code collaboration. We will also look at the values and culture emergent on the SSB network (including the solarpunk aesthetic), how it organizes and funds itself, how it practices diversity and inclusion, and where it may head in the future.

Charles Lehner

Charles E. Lehner (@cel) is a software developer building collaborative applications on the Secure Scuttlebutt Network.

How to teach students about free software

: Saturday 11:35 - 12:20 : Patriot
: Licensing

As most free software advocates know, it can be very difficult to explain the central concepts to people who have never heard of these ideas before. If you introduce too many things at once, people tend to tune you out from being overwhelmed, and then they don't really appreciate the benefits of free software.

This presentation will explain effective strategies to teach the next generation what free software is, how it differs from proprietary software, and how licenses like the GPL and BSD 3-Clause have similar goals yet different legal implementations. William has been teaching (and grading) his college students on these concepts, and he will show you how to do the same for your students or your friends. Foundational legal concepts like copyright, patents, and trademarks will be clarified, as well as how to break down the main software license categories: copyleft (strong/weak), permissive, and proprietary.

William Liggett

William Paul Liggett is a software engineering professor at the Northern Virginia Community College, where he teaches classes on Java, Python, HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript, Relational Databases, Cybersecurity, and GNU/Linux. He also is the owner and coder of junktext.com, where he does freelance development for others. William previously worked in the US defense and intelligence communities as a software developer, IT project manager, and systems administrator. He served in the US Marine Corps, where he was meritoriously promoted to Sergeant (E-5). He is also very skilled at amazing and very funny jokes!

Platform cooperativism, surveillance capitalism, predictive analysis, and you

: Saturday 16:20 - 17:05 : Back Bay Grand
: Social context

Our data makes us unique. How can we own our data? Are we more powerful if we align into groups? How do we own the software platforms we use? How does cooperative development work? How do we share work on large projects? Why and how will free software help us in this era of surveillance? There are so many questions, and very little time for us to come up with solutions or responses. The tech industry has all but left free software in the dust, while spreading malware and using disingenuous advertising campaigns. We can find ways to build the future with free software, but we also need to raise awareness. Although free software is not the answer to all of society's problems, it plays a huge role in how much control we have over our own data and our own future as citizens and as workers.

Micky Metts

Micky is a worker/owner of Agaric (agaric.coop) and a member of the “free software for
community building” movement, using free software tools like VOIP, Drupal, and GNU/Linux. She is a liaison between the US Solidarity Economy Network (SEN), a group devoted to ongoing dialogue on building the new economy network, and the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC), the national grassroots organization of US worker-owners who are “building power
with national and international partners to advance an agenda for economic justice rooted in community-based shared ownership.” As a board member of the MayFirst Technology Movement cooperative, Micky works with technical activists to connect people with the information and tools they need to move from being a global network to becoming a global movement based on solidarity.

Learning natural language processing through the Regender Project

: Saturday 15:25 - 16:10 : Back Bay Grand
: Free Software in practice

Research has shown that the way we use language influences the way we think. Can we begin to disentangle gender from our identities through language? Inspired by modern speculative fiction writers like Ann Leckie, the Regender Project aims to explore that question by using technology to alter the genders used in English text: changing male characters to female and vice versa, or assigning everyone the same gender pronoun. This talk will cover the beginning efforts to build a dictionary of English gendered words, as well as the technological challenges of swapping pronouns, gendered words and proper names in text, using free software natural language tools, machine learning, and common sense knowledge bases.

EC Monsen

Eva is a career software engineer and data consultant, as well as a startup advisor and an advocate for underrepresented founders, and is stoked to share projects that combine those passions.

The importance of free software games

: Sunday 14:30 - 15:15 : Patriot
: Exploring Free Software concepts

This talk will explain why free software games with free cultural assets are necessary for the free software movement. I will highlight practical ways that anyone can help improve free software games, regardless of whether we know coding or other skills -- even if you don’t know how to code, you can always spread the word about the games that you love! Then, I will conclude with some easy ways for anyone to do a little free software activism every day.

Lori Nagel

Lori Nagel has worked on and off on the free software multi-player online role playing game project “Wograld,” which you can learn about at wograld.org. She has also written a free culture Web cartoon (see jastiv.com) and a free culture novel (see jastiv.blogspot.com/2019/03/free-culture-novels-where-to-post-them.html).

GNU Health Embedded: An introduction

: Sunday 13:35 - 14:20 : Freedom
: Free Software in practice

The GNU Health software suite is a libre health and hospital information system with a strong focus on public health. This talk focuses on recent updates to GNU Health Embedded, a version of GNU Health that is being updated as a 100% libre software and hardware platform. It will be tailored for pocket-sized computers, and is currently being developed by PrivacySafe for the Beagleboard.org BeagleBone AI hardware.

This shift includes an increased focus on privacy and security, allowing GNU Health to be deployed in a myriad of environments with servers that are, optionally, accessible via the Tor network. This talk will dive into the details of the GNU Health Embedded development effort, and explores user scenarios for the platform.

Sean O'Brien

Sean O'Brien is a lecturer in law at Yale Law School with expertise in cybersecurity and mobile device forensics. Sean founded Yale Privacy Lab, where his research includes privacy auditing of Android apps. His current focus is IoT device security, work that has culminated in the PrivacySafe appliance and the GNU Health Embedded effort for the platform.

Free software for minorities in Turkey in their own languages

: Sunday 11:35 - 12:20 : Patriot
: Social context

In Turkey, along the Anatolia, more than 25 languages are spoken. Our organization, Özgür Yazılım Derneği (Free Software Association of Turkey), wanted to translate our Web site and works to Anatolian languages including Kurdish, Zazaki, Lazuri, and Homshetsi. Through conversations with culture institutes and associations, we learned that Anatolian minorities, who are also enduring repressive assimilation policies, are not able to use their devices with their own languages.

Free software and freedom philosophy gives a ray of hope to Anatolian minorities. We are “freeing the future” by translating and documenting GNU/Linux, GNOME, Firefox, LibrePlanet, and perhaps Android/Replicant to their languages, as well as Wiktionary and Wikisource, to help them keep their languages alive.

Özcan Oğuz

Özcan Oğuz is the president of the Free Software Association (Özgür Yazılım Derneği) in Turkey. Ze started to use computers when ze was 2, in 1999. In 2007, with the Pardus project, ze first encountered free software philosophy and GNU/Linux, and starting from this date ze is using exclusively free software in zis devices. Ze was graduated from Kadıköy Anadolu High School, which is one of the most reputable high schools in Turkey. After KAL, ze was matriculated in Boğaziçi University. From 2016 to 2018, ze was working as publisher and journalist at Çırak mag and Abaküs Kitap. In 2017, ze founded Hackerspace Istanbul in Kadıköy, İstanbul. For three years, ze has been an instructor at Mustafa Akgül Free Software Camps, teaching GNU/Linux system administration.

Lightning talks

: Sunday 15:25 - 16:10 : Freedom
: LibrePlanet special sessions

A lightning talk is a five-minute presentation on any topic that you think would be interesting to a group of free software users, hackers, and activists. Each session has time for a total of twelve talks. Since we're seeking a breadth of relevant topics, signing up to give a talk does not guarantee you a slot.

We'll pick the twelve talks that we feel are most interesting to our attendees once we've gotten enough submissions. We're especially interested in hearing from new people who haven't ever spoken at an FSF event!

Libre Planet

Moderated by FSF licensing and compliance manager Donald Robertson, III.

Add your name to the list!
https://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanet:Conference/Lightning_Talks

Lightning talks

: Sunday 16:20 - 17:05 : Freedom
: LibrePlanet special sessions

Libre Planet

Moderated by FSF licensing and compliance manager Donald Robertson, III.

Add your name to the list!
https://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanet:Conference/Lightning_Talks

Public Invention: Free hardware inventions “in the public, for the public”

: Sunday 16:20 - 17:05 : Patriot
: Free Software in practice

Public Invention is a new nonprofit that hopes to create a movement to help humanity by bringing the values that power the free software movement to hardware and math. The basic tactic is to form teams of inventors that work publicly, in the light, with free licenses.

This talk will be accompanied by a demonstration of physical devices that embody the public-invention project-based approach. These projects will be explained as a motivation of our intellectual property policies and specific operating practices. We will briefly touch on the six most advanced projects supported by Public Invention, and briefly mention some of the forty invention ideas that have been donated to Public Invention to develop and build. We will place Public Invention in a historic context, discuss the mission, and explain our vision for the future: a world where inventing “in the public, for the public” is the norm.

Robert Read

Robert L. Read, PhD (computer science), after serving in director-level software engineering architecture and management positions, was a Presidential Innovation Fellow in 2013, where he advocated free software in the US federal government. He is a champion of Agile software development methods, an inventor, and a thought-leader. He holds two patents in optics. His most popular publication is “How to be a Programmer.” He began Public Invention in 2015 to produce free-libre hardware inventions and mathematical progress, and the project has mentored about eight students and produced two peer-reviewed papers so far. Rob is also the chief scientist of Skylight Digital, and CTO of Wacuri, Inc. He speaks Esperanto fluently.

Font Bakery: Gathering font engineering knowledge while improving a large collection of libre fonts

: Saturday 13:35 - 14:20 : Freedom
: Free Software in practice

Typography is a complex topic, and there are there are plenty of ways that a digital font can malfunction. Font Bakery aspires to become the ultimate font checking tool. To reach that goal, the project is structured as a collaborative compilation of font engineering knowledge and best practices.

This talk will discuss the challenges in gathering font engineering knowledge, and compiling it in a manner that is both effective for the implementation of automated quality checks, and simple and easy to grasp for type designers. We'll also share insights into git-based workflows for the development of libre fonts.

Felipe Sanches

Felipe Sanches is a software freedom activist and developer with contributions to the development of graphic design, CAD, 3D printing, and 3D modeling libre software such as Inkscape, OpenSCAD, and GNU LibreDWG. During the last few years, Felipe has provided professional libre software development services focused on font engineering and quality assurance for fonts. You can learn more about his work at https://www.fsf.org/working-together/profiles/felipe-sanches.

The Gandhian way to freedom and privacy

: Sunday 10:40 - 11:25 : Freedom
: Social context

The time is ripe to build a strong case for individual self-hosting, backed up by community-hosted public network services with mutual trust among members. In this talk, I will build a strong case for individual self-hosting backed up by community-hosted public network services by drawing parallels to Mahatma Gandhi's "Charkha Movement," in which the traditional spinning wheel became a powerful symbol of self-sufficiency and freedom. We will need a similar approach within our communities in order to truly own our devices and networks, and reclaim our right to privacy.

Nishant Sharma

Nishant Sharma is a free software and libre hardware entrepreneur. He is a mechanical engineer by education, and has been making a living from free software since 2003.

He is co-founder and tech lead at Unmukti Technology, in India, where he works on building network equipment including SD-WAN gateways, VPN appliances, firewalls, access points, home edge computing gateways, etc. These devices are branded as Hopbox. He also worked for DeepRoot GNU/Linux, an Indian VSAT, and a Pan-European ISP, before founding Unmukti in 2010.

Nishant was lead translator for Debian Installer l10n to Hindi during 2006-07, and a OpenStreetMap volunteer mapper. He actively contributes to the OpenWrt project and its packages.

These days, he tries to build awareness for building network equipment and self-hosting among students and enterprise decision makers.

Patents and freedom: Where we stand now

: Sunday 10:40 - 11:25 : Patriot
: Licensing

For many years, the existence of software patents, and the threat that certain entities would use them against free software, was an issue of significant concern to the free software community. Since then, there have been many court decisions that have altered the landscape of what may be patented, procedures allowing challenges to patents outside of the court system, industry initiatives to create "patent peace" around parts of the free software world, and changes in the behaviors of certain patent holders once thought to present the greatest threat to free software. This presentation will give an overview, designed for a non-legal audience, of the latest developments, and suggest where the future of patents and free software may be headed.

McCoy Smith

McCoy Smith is the founding attorney at Lex Pan Law, a technology and intellectual property law firm in Portland, Oregon, USA. He also is on the editorial committee of the Journal of Open Law, Technology, & Society (JOLTS). For more than fifteen years, he acted as the primary support attorney for free software matters at Intel Corporation. Prior to joining Intel, he was in private practice in New York, NY and Washington, DC, specializing in IP litigation and patent prosecution. He was also a patent examiner in the US Patent and Trademark Office prior to law school. He is admitted to practice in New York, California, Oregon, and the US Patent & Trademark Office.

LibreOffice's tenth anniversary: The many faces of a global free software community

: Saturday 16:20 - 17:05 : Freedom
: Free Software in practice

LibreOffice was announced in 2010, and will celebrate its tenth anniversary in 2020. Over these last ten years, the global community behind this project has grown from a small group of volunteers, mostly based in Europe, to a large and diverse group of free software advocates spanning many countries. This presentation will discuss the challenges faced by the community during this incredible growth, and will provide a better understanding of the community for people who have only followed this evolution through announcements and events.

Italo Vignoli

Italo Vignoli is a founding member of The Document Foundation, the chairman emeritus of Associazione LibreItalia, an emeritus member of the OSI board, and co-chair of the ODF Advocacy OASIS Open Project. He co-leads LibreOffice marketing, public relations, and media relations, co-chairs the certification program, and is a spokesman for the project. He has contributed to large migration projects to LibreOffice in Italy, and is a LibreOffice certified migrator and trainer. From 2004 to 2010, he has been involved in the OOo project. In his professional life, he is a marketing consultant with decades of experience in high tech, and a visiting professor of marketing, public speaking, and public relations post-graduate courses. He has a degree in humanities at the University of Milan, and MBAs in marketing, public relations, and journalism.

Freeing the mobile phone: The story of the Librem 5

: Sunday 11:35 - 12:20 : Back Bay Grand
: Free Software in practice

Purism's founder and CEO Todd Weaver will tell the story of the Librem 5 from its inception, through decisions made to comply with the FSF’s Respects Your Freedom certification program, and on to many humorous anecdotes connecting tangential topics to the overall goal of freedom in technology.

Todd Weaver

Todd Weaver is a hardcore geek and digital rights activist who believes the best method of saving humanity is to create convenient products that fully respect people.

Creative Commons: Free software and the commons

: Saturday 10:40 - 11:25 : Back Bay Grand
: Licensing

Creative Commons is proud to empower free media. We recognize the invaluable role free software plays in the creation, collaboration, and dissemination of free media. In this session, Timid Robot shares Creative Commons’ efforts to create and contribute to free software and the communities that sustain it.

In this talk, they will introduce Creative Commons and the general concept of the commons (globally-accessible public commons of knowledge and culture); explore the relationship between free media (the commons) and free software; and promote free software governed by Creative Commons.

Timid Zehta

Timid Robot brings over 15 years of professional experience empowering others’ use of technology and digital infrastructure. They have a BA in liberal arts from Sarah Lawrence College. Timid Robot loves cats, free source software, systems, and giving back to the communities around them.

Free software and the environment

: Saturday 13:35 - 14:20 : Patriot
: Social context

Free software is much better than proprietary software in many ways, but this talk is about how it’s also a more environmentally sustainable model for computing. Free software makes it easy to reuse old machines and prevent excess waste from going into the environment. This can't be done with proprietary software because the manufacturer can force updates that slow the machine down, or they could stop supporting the system altogether. This is not a problem with free software, because the source code can be modified.

Ben O'Neill

I am a high school student from the Boston area. I've been interested in free software since I was 13. I enjoy programming, listening to music, hanging with friends, and watching war movies.