If you are looking for the slides for my GUADEC keynote, you can find them here – Would you do it again for free?  It was a good conversation starter – I had fun in all the conversations that came out of the talk.  Lots of people shared supporting anecdotes with me.  And, most importantly, people pointed out that I left out one important area of motivation: ethics.  Lots of people work on open source software because they believe it is good that software is open.  

For the record, the GNOME crowd thinks they would continue working on GNOME even if they no longer got paid for it. 

I'm at OSCON and there's a new trend on the trade floor show.  Nobody is handing out t-shirts for free.  Instead they are accepting donations.  Some take any donation for a t-shirt, others like OSI suggest $5 for a t-shirt and some outright state a donation price – Mozilla requires a $10 donation for a t-shirt or cute stuffed animal.  Then there are others that are handing out t-shirts in exchange for applying for a credit card!

I have often thought that the open source community could use some more good blogs by attorneys, so I was very excited to see that Jason Haislmaier, one of my favorite open source attorneys, has started blogging!  Check out his blog ThinkingOpen.

Next week Jason is presenting a webinar on the GPLv3.  He'll talk about what's new in GPLv3 and what those changes mean for users and developers of open source software.  You can sign up for the webinar (it's free but requires registration) at GPLv3, Not Without Me!

Do you play online virtual reality games?  Have you created an avatar in Second Life?  Did you know your next job interview might be on Second Life?  I have created an avatar but I don't play regularly and the thought of going on a job interview in a virtual reality world is a bit scary.  Well, maybe a bit terrifying.  Also, a bit sad.

For the most part, I love trying out new technology and applications.  (It's taking all my will power not to buy an iPhone.)  But when Twitter came out, I started to worry that maybe I was falling behind the times – Twitter seemed like a great waste of time and nothing else.  (For the record, when web browsers first came out, I pronounced the internet a waste of time.  I was right – I waste tons of time on the internet but I wouldn't give it up.  So maybe there's hope for Twitter.)  But then I read the Wall Street Journal A Job Interview You Don't Have to Show Up For and I got this feeling in my stomach of "Oh no – I'm going to have to waste a lot of time learning how to use Second Life effectively."  The article was about real interviews being done in Second Life.  Companies like HP have a virtual office and real interviewers login and conduct their real interviews with real people in this virtual world.  The article was full of goofs that the interviewees had made – like handing over a beer instead of a resume, or sitting on top of the chair instead of on the chair, or not being able to figure out how to sit down at all!  And let's not mention clothes – I haven't seen too many virtual suits.  (Actually, if this takes off I think there's a great business to be had in designing virtual clothes.  Although somebody's probably doing that already.)  

I think in order for interviews in virtual worlds to be effective, all the players will have to excel at using the technology.  At my current skill level, there would be no advantage to using an avatar over just conducting the interview over the phone line.  All my avatar would tell you was that I was not skilled at moving around in a virtual world – there'd be no meaningful body language, no handshake, no eye contact, … and how in the world would you move your avatar and take notes at the same time?   The one immediate advantage I see in the short term is that you know the other person isn't doing email at the same time – not when they are spending all their time trying to figure out how to sit their avatar down in the chair!

We have moved past the Information Age – the knowledge worker is yesterday's hot commodity.  I read a book over my 4th of July break that crystalized something that I had been on the verge of realizing for a while.   In A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future Daniel Pink argues that we've mastered the Information Age and today's top thinkers need to add creativity to their work.  They need to see big picture (he calls it symphony), add design, stories, meaning, empathy, and a sense of play to the things we are creating and communicating.  Think about it.  We have all the basics.  All of our everyday needs are covered.  Things are relatively cheap.  I can buy a whole new outfit for my 10 month old for $4 at Walmart – that's half an hour of work at minimum wage!  I can buy a meal for even less.  Most of us own more things than we know what to do with.  (Just look at how the storage business is booming.)  What we are looking for is experience and meaning – the experience of Starbucks over just a cup of coffee, designer furniture over just a table and chairs, luxury cars over one that just runs.  Kathy Sierra's design blog has a huge following.  And don't forget meaning.  There's a reason Steve Pavlina's self development blogs is one of the highest earning blogs out there – people are looking to develop themselves and find meaning in life.  A purpose. 

Daniel Pink argues that in order to find that meaning and purpose we need to move into the Conceptual Age.  We've valued attorneys and computer programmers and accountants – people who traditionally use "left brain thinking" to process information in a logical manner.  Now we need to add "right brain thinking" to that.  Computer programmers are often designers now – just check out any Web 2.0 application.

I think open source software is enabling computer software developers to become computer software designers even faster than those that work on proprietary software.  They are already their own product manager, design engineer and programmer all in one.  They are free to add design elements in their own creative fashion.  Open source software developers are already designers – they are already in the Conceptual Age.