Understanding open source licenses

How developers interpret and understand open source licenses, with a love letter to good research.

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.