Comments on: Sponsorships for FSCONS Conference at end of October http://rejon.org/2008/09/go-to-fscons/ Jon Phillips is a developer living in San Francisco and Beijing while growing Fabricatorz.com and "new" media projects. His notable involvements include Open Source and Free Culture movements, Inkscape, Open Clip Art Library, and building Status.Net. Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:24:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Ralph Kerle http://rejon.org/2008/09/go-to-fscons/comment-page-1/#comment-129883 Ralph Kerle Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:16:09 +0000 http://rejon.org/?p=929#comment-129883 What is free culture? There is always a cost in producing culture. It is never free. There are components of culture, conversation and listening that maybe free. However, there is a cost to havew that conversation and that listening to occur - education and knowledge creation and production culture. That is not for free. What is free culture? There is always a cost in producing culture. It is never free. There are components of culture, conversation and listening that maybe free. However, there is a cost to havew that conversation and that listening to occur – education and knowledge creation and production culture. That is not for free.

]]> By: jon http://rejon.org/2008/09/go-to-fscons/comment-page-1/#comment-129640 jon Wed, 15 Oct 2008 07:31:40 +0000 http://rejon.org/?p=929#comment-129640 Ralph, Free is used in the context of the free software and free culture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software But, yes, Free is overloaded massively. And, yes, a pure academic conference assuming things are free as in free money, is a false statement. I don't however believe anyone at this conference is riding this tip and are instead looking for ways to further free and open source software movements. There are plenty of conferences like you propose though where non-academics are paid to speak. Ralph, Free is used in the context of the free software and free culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software

But, yes, Free is overloaded massively. And, yes, a pure academic conference assuming things are free as in free money, is a false statement. I don’t however believe anyone at this conference is riding this tip and are instead looking for ways to further free and open source software movements.

There are plenty of conferences like you propose though where non-academics are paid to speak.

]]> By: Ralph Kerle http://rejon.org/2008/09/go-to-fscons/comment-page-1/#comment-129613 Ralph Kerle Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:23:30 +0000 http://rejon.org/?p=929#comment-129613 Free is a difficult concept when most of the individuals involved are tenured academics who will use the freely generated knowledge to advance their careers and salary packages in the institutionalized environment of tertiary education. I propose that those people who are organizing this conference forego their salaries and pay people to attend who have the expertise and knowledge obtained from practice in the first instance and who do not work inside academic institutions. Turn the paradigm upside down. Those who are practitioners and experts in the field should be paid to attend universities conferences and the funds used to pay tenured positions used to organise and to pay those pracitioners presenting. No academic should present!! Consider this as a model because this is not a free conference, there are costs at all sorts of levels in this organisation and suggesting that it is free is untruthful and an incorrect use of the word. It is debasing the word the same way that derivatives have debased the world economy. Free is a difficult concept when most of the individuals involved are tenured academics who will use the freely generated knowledge to advance their careers and salary packages in the institutionalized environment of tertiary education.

I propose that those people who are organizing this conference forego their salaries and pay people to attend who have the expertise and knowledge obtained from practice in the first instance and who do not work inside academic institutions.

Turn the paradigm upside down. Those who are practitioners and experts in the field should be paid to attend universities conferences and the funds used to pay tenured positions used to organise and to pay those pracitioners presenting. No academic should present!!

Consider this as a model because this is not a free conference, there are costs at all sorts of levels in this organisation and suggesting that it is free is untruthful and an incorrect use of the word.

It is debasing the word the same way that derivatives have debased the world economy.

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