Barton's Blog

At the end of day two of FOSS camp in Cambridge, I was able to grab some time with Benjamin Mako Hill.  I had blogged about Mako's appointment to the board of the Free Software Foundation back in July but this was the first time that I really got to meet him.  He's quite an amiable guy and very enthusiastic about what he's involved with (it definitely comes through in the interview).  Check it out:

My interview with Mako (10:25)  Listen (Mp3)    Listen (ogg)
 

 
Nothing says "passion" like a well stickered laptop. 

Who is Mako?

• FSF board member chosen to fill the vacancy left by Eben Moglen
  
• Former member of the Debian project leadership team
• One of the original 12 picked by Mark Shuttleworth to start Ubuntu.
• A graduate student at MIT's media lab
• First author of "The Official Ubuntu Book" 
  
• First author of the "Debian GNU/Linux 3.x Bible"

Some of the topics we tackle: 

• The process of getting accepted onto the board of the FSF
• The daunting task of trying to fill Eben Moglen's shoes
• What it means to be the first board member from the post "GNU generation"
  
• Being the software guy on the One Laptop Per Child project
  
• Having been a rebel with too many causes
• The open source/free software "schism"
• UNIX jokes at a cappella shows

Since there is a good chance this will be my last entry of the year, I would like to wish everyone happy holidays and a hau'oli makahiki hou!

Pau for now...