Proposal for track and blogpost calling for #colabs action ahead of #LOTE3
“Im looking for a good, ideally self hosted alternative to google hangouts to do regular community video calls, and then be able to post the recornings of those sessions online. Help please.”
“I like the topic, and I think we could find people interested in such a track at LOTE because it’s highly relevant … and lots of folks are sick of depending on oogle & Co. But not just about video conferencing”
Idea:
Could it be worthwhile to dedicate one day at #LOTE3: the Unmonastery Edition (Oct 29 - Nov 30) to figuring out what is needed to improve the key pieces of software we need to build, manage and participate in thriving communities? And follow up the session with a 3 day hackathon to get as much of it done as possible, together? The ideal outcome will be a community-generated documentation of software recommendations and best practices: an approach similar to the Tech Tools for Activism book, but now including more aspects of community communication, like videoconferencing with large groups, online learning spaces (shared whiteboard, screensharing…), shared code editing etc…
Background/reasoning:
As netizens, we rely a lot on software for building, managing and participating in communities. Like forums, social networking sites, video conferencing, telephony software. Much commercial software is offered for free, like Google Hangout and Skype, but comes with a severe non-monetary price: giving up privacy. See the unfolding PRISM scandal …
Perhaps a small contribution would be to dedidate a track at lote3 to finding, learning and documenting alternative solutions: software infrastructure that does protects the privacy of personal data and content in online communities.
This is about confronting the dilemma heads-on that many of us have faced for years now: as people who build, manage or participate in online communities to affect positive change in the world, the choice was always: Safety as well as privacy – or speed, convenience and smooth user experience? We need non commercial digital infrastructure that is safe AND offers a great user experience.
We have witnessed first hand from the persecution of the late Aaron Swartz and the Pirate Bay how vested interests will attack disruptive innovators and voices for change.
We all love the free software and open source communities and the work they do to enable us to connect and collaborate. At the same time many of us are stressed out and stretched far too thin, more often than not working on volunteer basis and with very little resources at our disposal. We are constantly tempted by easier to use, commercial software even though we know it is bad for us and the Internet in the long run. We so want free software solutions to win, for all our sakes.
While we know that a conference is not enough time to code actual solutions, there’s a highly relevant contribution that we can make when gathering all together: Researching what is the state of the art in safe free structure communication infrastructure, learning to use it, documenting this as a toobox of recommendations and best practices, and pointing out which parts are still missing.
Possible stakeholders who could support follow up work?
- free software (FLOSS) developers, integrators and experts
- people from The Guardian Project (free and open source, secure Android communication apps) and similar initiatives
- authors from Tech Tools for Activism (maybe a collaboration to extend their book as conference outcome is possible?)
- organizers / developers from social networks for activists (N-1, Riseup Labs, …)
- IXDA?
- Communities like Ouishare, Edgeryders, Make Sense and (add more here)?
- Online education providers like Code Academy or Hackipedia?
- Others?
Interested in the topic? Know of good people, places or projects that we should draw into this conversation? Want to help? Tell us you are coming and leave a comment below!
