Description

Why Share Your Source?: High Priority Free Software and Culture Projects
Why do thousands of people around the world work tirelessly, oftentimes unpaid, hours contributing software and content to the world through free/libre and open source (FLOSS) projects? How is that seconds after Obama is elected, his Wikipedia entry is updated freely by a swarm of volunteers around the world?

This presentation examines the rationale beyond "feel good magic" of why people contribute time freely in the FLOSS and free culture movements. Jon Phillips discusses the reasoning behind contributing to large scale collaborative projects by first discussing his own past and current involvements with Creative Commons, Open Clip Art Library, Open Font Library and Inkscape in order to open up discussion about how and why people contribute to FLOSS and free culture projects. The presentation closes with a discussion about the highest priority free software and cultural projects important for the world and china.

The ultimate goal for the presentation is to have a discussion with all participants in order to examine why we contribute and what we feel the highest priority projects are for ourselves, china and the world.