Introducing the UNICEF Open Source Mentorship programme

2020/2021 in Open Source at UNICEF Innovation Fund

Open Source is a means to collaborate and solve common problems; during the COVID-19 pandemic, open data and tools proved useful in quickly tailoring and deploying life-saving services. How has the UNICEF Innovation Fund kept up with latest Open Source innovations? The UNICEF Innovation Fund invests exclusively in Open Source

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Committee risk: A governance challenge for Open Source

Community participation and engagement in corporate Open Source projects is valuable, yet difficult to foster. Many companies supporting popular Open Source projects develop diverse communities across different employers, nationalities, genders, educational backgrounds, and more. Increased diversity brings perspective about who finds a product useful. It also gives you the opportunity

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"Open Source Dependencies" is written in big text against a blue background. Next to the next are tiles from the board game Scrabble, together writing: "In lifting others we rise."

What if Open Source dependencies weren’t software?

I often wonder how to best measure and communicate Open Source value. The collective focus of the industry goes into quantifying dependencies; that is, how one software relies on other software in order to complete its primary function. The vocabulary to measure dependency usually includes words like “imports,” “licenses,” “bugs

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Përshëndetje nga Tiranë. Justin is pictured to the left of a rounded (circular) version of the Albanian flag.

Përshëndetje nga Tiranë 🇦🇱

Përshëndetje nga Tiranë, or in Albanian, hello from Tirana! I am residing for a short time in Tiranë (pronounced Ti·ra·na), Albania. After a previous visit in June, I decided to make Tiranë my home for part of my remote work contract. I moved in this past week. The most common

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2021 OSI Board of Directors statement of intent

2021 OSI Board of Directors statement of intent

This first appeared on the Open Source Initiative Wiki. In light of the election update this year, I am republishing my statement of intent on my personal blog. No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive. Mahatma Gandhi I believe in the value of upholding the Open Source

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What is Freedom?

When I first saw the letter asking for Richard Stallman and the FSF Board of Directors resignations with merely five signatures, I knew I had to sign. Not because I knew it would be the popular thing to do. But because it was what was true in my heart. Only

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Three predictions for Free Software in the 2020s

Three predictions for Free Software in the 2020s

From January to May 2020, I completed an independent study at the Rochester Institute of Technology on Business and Legal Aspects of Free/Open Source Software. This was the final credit for my completion of the Free and Open Source Software and Free Culture minor. That semester, I traveled to different

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Cryptographic Autonomy License (CAL-1.0): My first license review

Cryptographic Autonomy License (CAL-1.0): My first license review

The bookmark was creeping on my browser’s toolbar for months. “Cryptographic Autonomy License” CAL-1.0 on the Open Source Initiative webpage. But today, I decided it was time to do my first amateur license review. This is a fun exercise (for me). Remember, I am not a lawyer and this does

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RITlug/TeleIRC development update

Hacktoberfest 2020 with TeleIRC

October is here! If you contribute to Open Source projects, you might know that October is the month of Hacktoberfest. DigitalOcean teams up with different partners each year to send a t-shirt (or plant a tree on your behalf) for anyone who makes four GitHub Pull Requests in October. And

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Picture of the Alps from Bolzano, Italy. Take at the Fedora Mindshare FAD in March 2018.

A reflection: Gabriele Trombini (mailga)

Trigger warning: Grief, death. Two years passed since we last met in Bolzano. I remember you traveled in for a day to join the 2018 Fedora Mindshare FAD. You came many hours from your home to see us, and share your experiences and wisdom from both the global and Italian

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