I caught the 7:00 train to Boston on Friday night for the FSF's annual Associate Members Meeting. Long time readers will know that this is a pilgrimage I make every year, although it's only recently that I've decided to stop making the 4-plus-hour trip on a Chinatown bus (Amtrak is several times more expensive, but, really, it makes the trip way more bearable). This year I made plans to stay with Greg, who's doing an International Studies degree at MIT.
On line to board the Acela at Penn Station, I recognized a face in the crowd as belonging to someone who works for the FSF, although I couldn't remember the person's name. I tried a little to make eye contact but then decided that it might be best not to -- I didn't want to buttonhole the guy. The train was super crowded; I couldn't find a two-seater to myself as I walked from car to car. As the train was pulling out of the station, the conductor went on the intercom to say that people should just sit down. The only available seat (with an accessible 120V outlet -- part of the reason the train is appealing in the first place) was at a four-person table where the FSF guy I'd recognized was sitting. So I sat there. The FSF guy had a bunch of XOs he was kind of tinkering with and people kept coming over to ask him about them. There was another guy, a sort of besuited business type, at the table who was clearly curious, too -- and when the FSF guy got off the phone with his wife complaining about how he was too tired to prepare his conference presentation for Saturday, the business guy asked him what the conference was going to be about. So they started talking and arguing about the FSF and Free Software, and I figured I had to say something. I said, "I'm going to be at your talk tomorrow." It turned out the guy was Joshua Gay, one of the new Campaigns Managers, and Stallman's editor on Free Software, Free Society. He ended up being super nice and super talkative and not at all weirded out that I'd seemingly sat across from him on purpose. He told me about a bunch of FSF stuff (that I'll get to later), and he even seemed to think a New York office wasn't totally out of the question.
I met Greg at the Harvard stop on the T, and we walked across campus to his house. It was the first time I'd ever seen Harvard, and, not to sound like a reactionary, it wasn't really that impressive -- not terribly distinguishable (maybe a little more colonial?) from other hoary Ivy League institutions, and, kind of predictably, the science and engineering buildings looked dismal and under-architected. I don't know. I didn't go into any of the buildings, so I guess I can't really say. After all, MIT doesn't have the most mainstream attractive campus (the Meeting this year was held in a building that's on what's called The Gray Way) -- but once you get inside, there's this invigorating air of enthusiastic nerdiness that really makes you feel good.
I was famished so I dropped off my bag at Greg's and then Greg and I hit up this place called Bukowski's Tavern that Greg said had excellent bar food. He was right! We drank beers and talked, setting-appropriately, I guess, about the ways in which women have been cruel to us. Before I knew it, it was 1:30. I was on the verge of falling asleep when we got back, but Greg was hell-bent on us playing his new copy of Super Smash Brothers Brawl on the Wii, so we did that until my inability to understand that fucking game was well-established. That game is horrible, horrible. That night on the couch, I dreamed that P. Diddy had (mis)cast me in his Broadway production of A Raisin In The Sun.
In the morning Greg gave me cereal and I hopped the T to Kendall Sq. Jeanne signed me in and sweetly pushed coffee and scones on me, and I got into the hall in time to see about half of Joshua's presentation.
...Which was about the direct actions the FSF had staged as part of their various campaigns (Defective By Design and BadVista were the main ones), which had led to measurable successes at the BBC and, I think, at Boston Public Library. They'd also just come out with a major redesign of the FSF's web site. John Sullivan was up next, and he talked about another action the FSF was involved with, this one having to do with complaining to Netflix about their streaming video service (via inserting these nice little cards with FSF copy on them into the DVD return envelopes). It hadn't really occurred to me before, being outside the organization, but the fact that FSF has a formalized battle plan for staging focused actions that have a measurable, prompt effect is sort of a new thing (they've been reading a bunch of Saul Alinsky, they say), and the campaigns people are obviously pretty excited about it.
After Ben Klemens talked about the new End Software Patents campaign, they gave us lunch. MIT's catering service never disappoints -- there were some very good roasted vegetable sandwiches this time around. When we got back into the lecture hall, Peter Brown came in and said that they'd done a raffle with the attendees' names, and they were ready to announce the winner: It was me! The prize was a brindled gnu plush toy, a larger and more articulated version of the ones they were selling this year at the sign-in table. I can't vouch for the integrity of the raffle (Jeanne revealed to me afterwards that they'd sort of slopped it in my favor), but I'm keeping the gnu. It is awesome.
Mako's talk was about possible ways to improve upon non-Free network services like MySpace -- services in which the software isn't distributed, per se, but which comprise a significant component of our daily computing time. His conclusion is that promotion of something like the Affero GPL might be what's called for, but that it's still a very difficult problem. I'm still struggling with accepting as a premise the idea that software I merely interact with needs to be Free; I still think it's a should, rather than a must. Mako's answer to my question on that topic was that I should think of it in terms of goals towards freedom and not in terms of rights. Nina agreed when I explained it to her. I'll try?
Henri Poole and Brett Smith talked, respectively, about organizing Hollywood writers around open licensing and the reception of the third-generation FSF licenses. I had to leave pretty soon after that in order to catch the 4:40 back to New York. (I'm writing this part on the train, in fact! I just went to the food car and bought a ham sandwich and a Corona from the lady behind the counter, who was raving about Bill Belichick and gesturing with a paring knife.)
I had to scramble when I got off the train because I had to drop off my bags at my office before heading up to Roseland for... The Pogues! I actually timed it just about right -- Straight To Hell was fading out of the PA speakers when I met Tom near the island with the sound board, and Messrs. Stacy, Finer, Chevron, etc., and finally MacGowan took the stage to a packed house right after. Shane seemed to be in remarkably better shape than he'd been in last year -- thinner, steadier, maybe a tad more intelligible -- although he did make repeated trips off-stage over the course of the set (catheter?). Their set was largely the same as last year's, and exhileratingly, foot-stompingly played. Additions included a couple of ballads sung by Spider (he's no Shane, let's just say)... and, for the penultimate encore, Fairytale of New York, with Ella Finer! That was a treat. That band is so good, so maddeningly good.
Two things: There was a fat guy with neat little beard standing behind us (me and Nina and Tom and Eve and Eve's friend Sean and his girlfriend), a real Google sysadmin type, who kept yelling, drunkenly, "Fuck the English! Fuck the English! English out of Ireland!" during The Irish Rover and Poor Paddy Works On The Railway.
Also, during one of the times that Shane was off stage, a bloated, pale gentleman with a wispy beard and a bleary look in his eye elbowed his way through the crowd past me and Tom. I didn't get a close look at him, but we made eye contact briefly, and he gave me a look like, hey, that's right, how're you doing. "Tom," I said. "Did Shane MacGowan just walk by us? He was wearing the same hat."
"The pork pie hat?" Tom asked, incredulous. "Look around you -- this place is full of assholes wearing pork pie hats."
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