Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

Tag
Open Source and Free Culture

05 Jan 2018, 8:49 a.m.

Software Freedom Conservancy Fundraiser

I am a supporter of the Software Freedom Conservancy, a nonprofit that helps free and open source software projects. They help programmers give away their work for free. I wrote a quick neighbor-friendly introduction to …

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02 Jan 2018, 9:46 a.m.

2017 Sumana In Review

Four years ago, during my first batch at the Recurse Center, every day I'd write in a little notebook on the subway on my way home, jotting down a few bullet points about what I …

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17 Dec 2017, 10:02 a.m.

Bill 1696 and Learning Old Systems

A very amended version of Councilmember Vacca's algorithmic transparency bill has now passed the City Council and is headed for the Mayor's desk to sign.* This follows the October 16th hearing (which was moved to …

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11 Nov 2017, 7:14 a.m.

Video of Our PyGotham Play

You can now watch the 22-minute video of the play I discussed last month. "Code Review, Forwards and Back", co-written by and co-starring Jason Owen and me, directed by Jonathan Galvez. Thanks to: Kenneth Durril …

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18 Sep 2017, 13:35 p.m.

Supporting Int 1696-2017 for Source Code Transparency in New York City

The principle at stake in California v. Johnson: due process requires that we be able to examine the evidence used to convict someone. Kern County got a $200,000+ grant and started using closed-source software to …

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13 Jun 2017, 10:41 a.m.

Transparency And Accountability In Government Forensic Science

In February, I learned that the New York State Assembly was planning a public hearing on government oversight of forensic science laboratories, and then was invited to offer ten minutes of testimony and then answer …

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07 Apr 2017, 15:36 p.m.

Inclusive-Or: Hospitality in Bug Tracking

Lindsey Kuper asked: I’m interested in hearing about [open source software] projects that have successfully adopted an "only insiders use the issue tracker" approach. For instance, a project might have a mailing list where users …

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04 Apr 2017, 12:37 p.m.

How to Teach And Include Volunteers who Write Poor Patches

You help run an open source software community, and you've successfully signalled that you're open to new contributors, including people who aren't professional software engineers. And you've already got an easy developer setup process and …

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16 Mar 2017, 17:37 p.m.

What Does An Award Do?

I posted on MetaFilter about the new Disobedience Award that MIT Media Lab is starting (nomination deadline: May 1st). And in the comments there, I stumbled into talking about why one might found an award, …

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07 Feb 2017, 10:18 a.m.

Upcoming Talks

I happened upon the New York state Assembly's website last week,* and noticed an upcoming hearing about "Government oversight of forensic science laboratories" (PDF), hearing oral testimony by invitation only. I wondered: Who's on the …

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