Debian Women Project

The Debian Women project was founded in May 2004. We seek to balance and diversify the Debian Project by actively engaging with interested women and encouraging them to become more involved with Debian. We will promote women's involvement in Debian by increasing the visibility of active women, providing mentoring and role models, and creating opportunities for collaboration with new and current members of the Debian Project. We welcome the involvement of all people who are interested in increasing the participation of women in Debian.

Via Susan Crawford's Foo morning cont.

See also:
Diversity Management at IBM by Claudia Alban
and
«In kulturelle Integration muss viel investiert werden»
Der HSG-Professor Winfried Ruigrok hält den Nutzen von Diversity Management für schwer messbar, ist aber von der Relevanz der Diversität im Unternehmen überzeugt.

Now, it's official...
Mozilla Reorganization

On August 3rd, 2005, the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit public benefit software development organization, launched a wholly owned subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. The Mozilla Corporation is a taxable subsidiary that serves the non-profit, public benefit goals of its parent, the Mozilla Foundation, and will be responsible for product development, marketing and distribution of Mozilla products.

To the feed

You heard by now from Mozilla's subsidiary via Joi or the NYT.

Via Joi's post, I also found this gem from Karim Lakhani. It resonates well with my last post.

Finally I think this move has significant implications for social movements that care about changing the world at large. Most social movements are based on protest and boycotts. The means of fighting back against corporate and governmental institutions have always been to apply popular pressure on them. Open source communities have shown, that instead of protest, a focus on building alternative viable solutions can have much lasting and permanent impact. Building solutions that direclty compete in the marketplace puts pressure on firms in a way that boycotts and demonstration never can. Imagine if the living wage campaign, instead of just boycotting Nike, had formed an alternative company, lets call it Mikey!, producing hip athletic shoes and clothing made by fairly paid developing country workers. Imagine if they had created their own catchy slogans and gained significant market share against Nike. Imagine if the environmental movement had funded and created viable alternative sources of energy instead of merely protesting greenhouse gasses and nuclear power. Imagine the creation of GreenCar corporation manufacturing and selling hydrogen powered cars or ConSolar/Wind selling solar and wind generated electricity. Few social movements move beyond the repertoire of protest, disruption, violence, boycotts and show of solidarity in large numbers to the creation of whole, sustainable, alternative solutions in agreement with their concerns and grievances. This move by Mozilla Foundation is a further step in the right direction of social responsibility, profitability and community purpose.

A reason to convince marketing people to change their browser?
SEOpen: The SEO Firefox Extension

SEOpen is an extension I made for Firefox to help with search engine optimization. It provides many helpful tools at the click of a mouse.

Via Webmaster- Verzeichnis Blog

Larry Lessigs Ideen gehören allen!

DRM beschneidet unsere persönliche Freiheit und hemmt die Verbreitung von Kultur. Um das einzusehen, muss man vorläufig das Digitale beiseite lassen und stattdessen die gesamte menschliche Kultur betrachten. Mit der Teilnahme am kulturellen Leben geht eine Tätigkeit einher, die man "Remix" nennen könnte -– Neuabmischen. Man liest ein Buch. Man erzählt dessen Geschichte seinen Freunden. Man lässt sich von einem Film inspirieren und teilt diese Inspiration mit der Familie.

Remix nutzt die Früchte fremder Kreativität, ohne dem neu abgemischten Werk notwendigerweise einen Gefallen zu tut. Es gibt keine Bedingung, das Werk respektvoll oder freundlich zu behandeln. Die Freiheit zum Remix ist die Freiheit, zu veralbern oder zu huldigen. Nicht Fairness, sondern Freiheit ist der Maßstab. Eine Kultur, die den Menschen diese Freiheit verweigert und dennoch gedeiht, ist fast undenkbar. Kultur entsteht durch Remix. Wir schaffen kulturelle Dinge, indem wir lesen, kritisieren, loben oder missbilligen. Das gilt für kommerzielle und nichtkommerzielle Kultur: Man kann das Remixen nicht auf den frei zugänglichen Raum beschränken. Die Freiheit zum Remix folgt einer langen Tradition, egal ob das Ausgangsmaterial unter Copyright steht oder nicht.

[...] Wenn Technologie die weitestmögliche Auslegung des bestehenden Urheberrechts erlaubt, dann wird Remix praktisch unmöglich. Eine seit Anbeginn der Kultur übliche Form von Kreativität würde in der digitalen Kultur verloren gehen - und der gesamten Kultur, wenn die digitale Kultur in unserem Alltag mehr und mehr um sich greift.

the spread(of)CC



The current spread of Creative Commons.
Lawrence Lessig: "The green are countries where the project has launched. The yellow are close. The red is yet to be liberated."

See also:
Creative Commons Weblog Switzerland
On Lessig's map Switzerland is still yellow, so I am wondering when the swiss CC will be officially launched. I have to ask Mike or Urs, I guess.

Open Source: The blog is in beta. The radio show starts today.

Christopher Lydon hosts Open Source, a live hour on the radio that sounds like a live day on the web. We’ll be working with bloggers and podcasters and featuring ideas posted and recorded to our own blog; the idea is to capture the sound of conversation on the web, share it with a radio audience and then invite that audience back to the web to contribute.

Via Joi

Hmm... Anne Galloway has definitely a point here. I like what the BBC and the BFI do, especially compared to our situation here, but more and more everything is blurred. Just think about the recent partnership of the bank of the establishment and the hard- and software company with the rebel image.

But when Microsoft or the BBC want me to "play" with their products it's different from when I play with my friends and peers. Not necessarily worse, and wonderful in all sorts of ways, but different nonetheless. Started as basically DIY efforts, Flickr has become Flickr/Yahoo and Dodgeball has become Dodgeball/Google. Blogging the latest conference I attended or building patio furniture from the latest issue of Ready-Made is different than squatter entrepreneurship. Assembled relations shift, will continue to shift, and that's never a neutral occurrence. And you know what? When I moderated the Designing for Hackability panel at DIS last summer, I could not engage one single person on the implications of commodifying the hacker or DIY ethic. In worst case scenarios I was shut down by the claim that such concerns were utterly irrelevant.

DEMOCRATIZING INNOVATION- by Eric Von Hippel

The ongoing shift of innovation to users has some very attractive qualities. It is becoming progressively easier for many users to get precisely what they want by designing it for themselves. And innovation by users appears to increase social welfare. At the same time, the ongoing shift of product-development activities from manufacturers to users is painful and difficult for many manufacturers. Open, distributed innovation is “attacking” a major structure of the social division of labor. Many firms and industries must make fundamental changes to long-held business models in order to adapt. Further, governmental policy and legislation sometimes preferentially supports innovation by manufacturers. Considerations of social welfare suggest that this must change. The workings of the intellectual property system are of special concern. But despite the difficulties, a democratized and user-centric system of innovation appears well worth striving for.

Via Follow The Leader, by Peggy Anne Salz

[...] hackability enables economies of scope, which are the most difficult to realize at the the same time as economies of scale.

A very good point from Ross and which has a lot to do with how one thinks about a lot of things...

Via Marko