I'm ploughing through some open source project email threads and thinking: In 2010, people got together in Berlin for a Wikimedia developers' meeting .... and then a bunch of them hung around a lot longer …
This insightful, funny, downbeat Brandy Zadrozny interview obliquely reminds me of something I realized the other day: the modern Web is, relatively, amazing at offering discovery but awful at offering context. It's easier than it's …
In scifi/fantasy fandom there's this phrase, "Big Name Fan". This is someone who is well-known, influential, for the fannish things they say and do and make. The idea is that a BNF is a minor …
I'm working on a forthcoming book on rejuvenating legacy open source systems. In addition to my bibliography of open source management books/courses, I'm grateful to a few management, teaching, and writing books that have influenced …
This is a little bit about how free-range learners in programming assess our own skill levels and choose what to learn next. But it's also a response to my own insecurity, and to the …
I'm in the process of working with a contractor to overhaul my personal and professional websites. Thus, I have been thinking about my brand (oh how I want to put distancing quotation marks around that …
A friend found out recently that his spellchecker did not know the word "disempowering" and instead suggested "disemboweling". Spellchecker, I beseech you, in the bowels of Merriam-Webster, think it possible you may be mistaken.
Here's the open letter in which thousands of people and several organizations ask for major changes at the Free Software Foundation and GNU in light of the FSF's recent and extremely frustrating choices. I haven't …
A few days ago I submitted my nomination ballot for the Hugo Awards. In many years it's a bit hard for me to think of five excellent things to nominate in each work category. But …
I'm writing a book on maintaining legacy open source projects to help teach people vital skills. Right now, as far as I know, there's no textbook or course you can work through to learn skills …
