Understanding open source licenses
How developers interpret and understand open source licenses, with a love letter to good research.
influential articles
Open source licensing, creativity, innovation, freedom
The definition of open source isn’t arbitrary; it was designed to preserve the rights of those who create open source and codify the responsibilities of those use it. Its hard-won definition deserves defending, even if it is at times inconvenient.
Valuing undervalued superpowers
On doing glue work, a critical role that is too often considered expendable.
A critical look at the disparity of failures in demographic inference tools
What’s in a name? What’s not in a name? And why does this rose not smell so sweet?
Breaking down implications in data and data collection
Who is present in the data we collect? Who isn’t? And what does it matter?
What chickens can teach us about storytelling
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Disability realism and emotional labor
This month’s influential articles dive into discriminatory behavior along two different axes.
How we write, what we write, and the art therein
This month’s influential articles take a close look at expression.
Changing how we impact culture and engineering complexity
Over the years, I’ve built up a repository of resources that have shaped my thinking about software engineering, open source, work, life, and so much more. Every so often, I reference them in conversation and am asked for links, other recommendations, and thoughts or commentary about them. This year, I’ll be posting two or three every month, both as a way to revisit them as well as share a few thoughts about how they have changed how I journey throughout this (sometimes confusing) world.