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23	23	I've been very effective //without //holding any representative position. I'm going to go on doing this stuff whether you elect me or not. But I can do more, and more effectively, on some serious issues if you help me by making me an OSI director again. Here are two important items on my agenda:
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25		-~1. **We're Not Reaching the Common People** - People worldwide run //your //software, but are unaware of its effect on their lives. We need to reach them, so that they understand that there's another path besides having devices that control the user rather than are controlled by them, and are tools for selling their attention and information about them. Can we meaningfully improve the life and liberty of the common person, by helping them to understand what's at stake? Personal devices and the Internet should be tools to enable humanity and increase our freedom, rather than being used to misinform, surveil, and subjugate us. Open Source is the only way to make that happen. But to do the work, we must transition from making tools mainly for ourselves to understanding how to engage the common person as well as, for example, Apple does. That's really difficult for our developers, but we have opportunities to teach them how to do it.
	25	+~1. **We're Not Reaching the Common People** - People worldwide run //your //software, but are unaware of its effect on their lives. We need to reach them, so that they understand that there's another path besides having devices that control the user rather than are controlled by them, and are tools for selling their attention and information about them. Can we meaningfully improve the life and liberty of the common person, by helping them to understand what's at stake? Personal devices and the Internet should be tools to enable humanity and increase our freedom, rather than being used to misinform, surveil, and subjugate us. Open Source is the only way to make that happen. But to do the work, we must transition from making tools mainly for ourselves to understanding how to engage the common person as well as, for example, Apple does. That's really difficult for our developers, but we have opportunities to teach them how to do it. How do we start? See "Bruce's Apple Exercise" below to help you develop understanding.
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27		-Try this exercise, if you live near an Apple store: Go there, look like a normal person, don't sneer. Be polite and quiet. Just sit, stand, or look around. Not by the Genius Bar, but where people are trying out Apple hardware. Look at the people and what they are doing. Try to pick up how they are feeling, what they are seeing and experiencing, what attracts their attention. They're happy and excited, because they are going to be enabled, and their lives enhanced, by all of that proprietary software. Watch how they engage with it, and with each other. Look at the hardware - it's beautiful. It's physically desirable, it indicates status, it makes them want to own it. Consider how those design elements extend to the software. How does Apple's own software appear to the customer? Look at what's visible to the user and don't consider what isn't. The kernel, utilities, and what language they program in aren't important to the customer, they don't see that - only the user interface, how responsive the computer is, how well it works. Look at how Apple promotes itself. It says something completely different to their customers than what it probably says to you. Put yourself in the Apple customer's shoes, and try to see and feel what they do. If anyone asks what you're doing, it's marketing research.
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29		-Then, take that home and help us appeal to people just as well. Because if we can do that and give them freedom too, we win.
30		-
31	31	2.// **The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance**// - There are some //serious //problems facing the Open Source community, and there always are, every year. Who is pushing back for you?// Maybe not who you think. //We are faced with powerful companies and their industry associations that profess to represent Open Source while they work against our interest, like loggers who claim to speak for the trees. They are trying right now to establish royalty-bearing patents in "Open" standards that would prevent the implementation of Open Source that complied with the standard, or its commercial use. They are fighting to make our licenses unenforceable - one country's copyright commission even sponsored a presentation on making Open Source licenses "guidelines" rather than legal requirements**. **Well-known companies flaunt decade-long infringements of licenses that //don't even ask for much,// potentially establishing a precedent for courts to further dishonor our licenses.** **One company and their lawyer sued me for defamation for even //daring //to blog that they //might //be violating an Open Source license. I ran up a fortune in legal defense fees, but I'm sticking with the case, to protect the Free Speech Rights of Open Source developers. Against all of these forces, we have our small, poorly funded organizations like OSI that truly have the community's goals at heart, and people like me who try to fund their activities out of their own pockets. We need all of the help we can get.
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33	33	== Can We Talk? ==
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59	59	A lot of Open Source is developed by people on their own time, and even the ones who get paid spend a lot of their personal energy, credibility, and their career direction on Open Source. We need to keep it fun for them, or they won't work. They need to be helped in whatever way they can be, their work needs to be made easier wherever we can, and they need to be //appreciated //for their work. We need companies to treat them well, not exploit them. So, I lobby and educate in their interest, and spend some time on stage giving them reasons to feel good about their work (like this: do you know just how much Open Source is on the //Falcon 9?// Actually a lot, and there's even Open Hardware!).
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	57	+== Bruce's Apple Exercise ==
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	59	+
	60	+This is from my work on Reaching the Common People. Try this exercise, if you live near an Apple store:
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	62	+Go there, look like a normal person, don't sneer. Be polite and quiet. Just sit, stand, or look around. Not by the Genius Bar, but where people are trying out Apple hardware. Look at the people and what they are doing. Try to pick up how they are feeling, what they are seeing and experiencing, what attracts their attention. They're happy and excited, because they are going to be enabled, and their lives enhanced, by all of that proprietary software. Watch how they engage with it, and with each other. Look at the hardware - it's beautiful. It's physically desirable, it indicates status, it makes them want to own it. Consider how those design elements extend to the software. How does Apple's own software appear to the customer? Look at what's visible to the user and don't consider what isn't. The kernel, utilities, and what language they program in aren't important to the customer, they don't see that - only the user interface, how responsive the computer is, how well it works. Look at how Apple promotes itself. It says something completely different to their customers than what it probably says to you. Put yourself in the Apple customer's shoes, and try to see and feel what they do. If anyone asks what you're doing, it's marketing research.
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	64	+Then, take that home and help us appeal to people just as well. Because if we can do that and give them freedom too, we win.
	65	+
61	61	== Movies ==
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63	63	I worked at Pixar, joining as employee number 62 or so, before they ran out their non-compete with Lucasfilm and could be an animation studio again. I have a credit on //Toy Story II// and //A Bug's Life,// and am featured in the documentaries //Revolution OS //and //The Code Breakers. //I left Pixar after 12 years there and 19 years in the film industry, to work full-time on Open Source.