Presented by

  • Wm Salt Hale

    Wm Salt Hale
    @altsalt
    https://sal.td

    Salt is a Seattle local who has been involved with the Free Software movement since 1996. Currently, he works at IEEE SA Open while volunteering as Impresario of SeaGL and Community Director of Snowdrift.coop. Salt attended five years of graduate studies at the University of Washington where he focused on the intersection between communication, computer science, and law. Salt tries to be very approachable and will always be found wearing a kilt.

  • Eric Holscher

    Eric Holscher
    @ericholscher

    Eric is the co-founder of Read the Docs, Write the Docs, and EthicalAds. His work has historically been around software documentation, but he’s also been actively engaged in community building and open source sustainability for over 15 years. He currently lives in Bend, Oregon, and love to explore the outdoors, checking out the various beauty that the world holds.

  • LX Cast

    LX Cast
    @laurex
    https://questioning.ca/about

    LX is currently a founder of a group app called Fractal and a student and practitioner of patterns of collective practice. They have been a product leader working on communication and collaboration tech for about 12 years. They're a board member at Prosocial Design Network and Tech Fleet, a past Resident Fellow at the Integrity Institute, a steering committee member of the Council on Tech and Social Cohesion, a member of Aspen Institute's Virtually Human working group, a mentor with PDX Women in Tech and All Tech is Human, and a consultant helping nonprofits develop product discovery practices. LX Cast is mostly water and collections of bacteria and bone and stardust. An emergent invention. Canadian West Coast island-born former New Yorker current Portlander curiouser researcher reader leader shape shifter code switcher beginner elder young a flash of light technologist social engineer experimental questioning contradictory vegan (except for brownies) consultant recoverer contributor community practitioner strategist poet weirdo professional queer non-binary neurodivergent raised-Quaker seemer listener fox cook step-parent partner collaborator co-keeper teacher coach flaneur aesthete hiker hard to locate reliable emerging being who practices synthesis learning listening walking investigating supporting reflecting confusing growing perplexing and occasionally punctuating.

  • Michael Siepmann

    Michael Siepmann
    https://msiep.com

    Michael is an interaction designer and user researcher with a PhD in psychology, decades of mindfulness practice, and great enthusiasm for making life better for all of us through psychosocially insightful and compassionate design of systems big and small. He has been involved with FOSS since 2015, when he started volunteering for Snowdrift.coop. His contributions there have included user research, interaction design, message design, coining the term "crowdmatching", and proposing an approach to crowdmatching in which donations are adjusted monthly to match the extent to which the crowd's total pledge meets the project's goal. Recently, he started a closely related project, IwillifWecan.org.

Abstract

Following the three related talks earlier in the day, this session will provide an opportunity for interactive discussion of key challenges in funding FLO (Free/Libre/Open) software and other similarly-licensed digital works, with reference both to incentives that shape the status quo and to possibilities for positive change. Salt will facilitate as well as participate in the panel discussion, which will include opportunities for audience participation.