A new project: Was open source inevitable?

Last fall, I listened to the episode Was the Protestant Reformation Inevitable? on the Tides of History podcast. It turns out to be a fascinating question both because of the importance of the event and the difficulty of giving a definitive answer. I encourage a listen.

However, for me, it turned out to be fascinating for another reason as well. It got me thinking that a similar question could be asked about open source. And this got me excited because I'm a big believer in how history and counterfactuals can shed a lot of light on current and future processes—such as those around how open source software (and other types of openness) might develop in the future.

My plan is to turn this into a miniseries within my existing Innovate @Open podcast. Although my podcasts are normally fairly straightforward one-on-one interviews, this three(?) parter will be more produced and feature edited interviews from a variety of guests interspersed with commentary and perhaps historical material.

I had originally planned to do most of the interviews at events and I had started to do so. But with essentially all travel shutdown at the moment I'm taking advantage of the relative lull to reach out to people.

If you think you have something to add, feel free to get in touch. I'm mostly interested in ways things could have played out in a materially different way. Perhaps not without open source at all but a materially different landscape.

Podcast: Hyperledger's Arnaud Le Hors on best practices for Technical Steering Committees

Arnaud Le Hors is the chair of the Hyperledger Project's technical steering committee (TSC). Earlier this month, I sat down with Arnaud at the Hyperledger Global Forum to talk about the role of technical steering committees and some of the things that they've learned with Hyperledger over the past few years.

The Hyperledger Project is a group of related enterprise blockchain projects under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation. However, in this discussion, we didn't focus so much on the technology but, rather, on how best to manage a project from a technical perspective. Perhaps the most interesting part of this discussion related to how managing a project like this one is at least as much about process as it is about the core technology. Example. What could the TSC have done better? Document everything!

Some related links:
Hyperledger Project
Hyperledger TSC Home
Open governance insights from Chris Aniszczyk, VP of Developer Relations at the Linux Foundation
Blockchain reality check 2020: Challenges and winning applications (write-up from Hyperledger Global Forum 2020)

Listen to podcast [MP3 - 24:11]

Favorite Science Fiction Short Stories: First Draft

I've been playing around with re-reading favorite science fiction short stories and seeing if there's anything that has managed to elude me over the years. (Or at least I've totally forgotten if I did read it.) It's not always as easy as it seems as if it should be to track down individual short stories--at least legally. But that's a story for another day.

Anyway, my initial list (sorted chronologically) is below. A few rules I set for myself:

• One story per author. Certainly there are many on this list for which I could effortlessly reel off multiple deserving entries.
• I didn't worry about exact definitions. There are stories here that are longer than the science fiction awards definition of a short story.
• I didn't cut a lot of slack for popular older stories that require a lot of historical perspective to appreciate today.
• I also didn't include authors who I like for their novels but don't have any short stories I'm aware of that really wowed me. 
• I tried to pick stories that work well in isolation. For example, while I really like Larry Niven's Known Space stories, I think "Inconstant Moon" is probably his best standalone story.

Who am I missing? Are there any of my picks that you think are really off?

	The Machine Stops	E. M. Forster	1909
	A Martian Odyssey	Stanley G. Weinbaum	1934
	Microcosmic God	Theodore Sturgeon	1941
	The Weapon Shop	A. E. van Vogt	1942
	Mimsy were the Borgoves	Lewis Padgett (pseudonym)	1943
	A Logic Named Joe	Murray Leinster	1946
	The Lottery	Shirley Jackson	1948
	Scanners Live in Vain	Cordwainer Smith	1950
	There Will Come Soft Rains	Ray Bradbury	1950
	Surface Tension	James Blish	1952
	It's a Good Life	Jerome Bixby	1953
	Fondly Fahrenheit	Alfred Bester	1954
	The Star	Arthur C. Clarke	1955
	The Last Question	Isaac Asimov	1956
	All You Zombies	Robert Heinlein	1959
	Flowers for Algernon (short story)	Daniel Keyes	1959
	A Rose for Ecclesiastes	Roger Zelazny	1963
	Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman	Harlan Ellison	1965
	Light of Other Days	Bob Shaw	1966
	We Can Remember it for you Wholesale	Philip K. Dick	1966
	Aye, and Gomorrah	Samuel Delany	1967
	Inconstant Moon	Larry Niven	1973
	Ender's Game (short story)	Orson Scott Card	1977
	Sandkings	George R. R. Martin	1979
	The Gernsback Continuum	William Gibson	1981
	True Names	Vernor Vinge	1981
	Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight	Ursula Le Guin	1987
	Bears Discover Fire	Terry Bisson	1990
	Even the Queen	Connie Willis	1992
	Story of your Life	Ted Chiang	1998

Podcast: Open hardware and firmware with Bryan Knouse of Project OWL

Project OWL (Organization, Whereabouts, and Logistics) has developed a mesh network of Internet of Things (IoT) devices called “DuckLinks” that can be deployed or activated in disaster areas to quickly reestablish connectivity and improve communication between first responders and civilians in need. On March 10, the Linux Foundation announced that Project OWL’s IoT device firmware effort will be hosted at the Foundation.

In 2018, Project OWL was the global winner in the inaugural Call for Code Global Challenge, competing with more than 100,000 participants from 156 nations. The Call for Code Global Challenge encourages and fosters the creation of practical applications built on open source software, with a focus on immediate and lasting humanitarian impact in communities around the world. “Project OWL was our first Call for Code winner that went through the Code and Response incubation process, and we’re excited to see this solution grow closer to reality,” said Daniel Krook, IBM Chief Technology Officer for Call for Code and Code and Response.

Listen to the podcast [MP3 - 16:15]