0:00:02.202,0:00:06.112 ♫ dubstep music playing ♫ 0:00:35.252,0:00:39.471 This was in the pale dublight [br]by Sumana Harihareswara. 0:00:39.814,0:00:42.838 Welcome to Passionate Voices, [br]welcome Sumana! 0:00:42.964,0:00:45.772 Hi there, Erik![br]How's it going today? 0:00:45.926,0:00:47.052 Good, how are you? 0:00:47.145,0:00:49.539 I'm good! It's good to see you! 0:00:49.711,0:00:51.169 Good to see you too! 0:00:51.358,0:00:52.926 So, for our viewers, [br]a quick summary: 0:00:53.021,0:00:57.374 Sumana is a technology manager,[br]a writer, a coder, a community organizer. 0:00:57.481,0:01:01.117 Born in New Jersey, moved[br]through Pennsylvania, Missouri, 0:01:01.178,0:01:06.325 northern California, before coming to[br]New York, and also has been involved 0:01:06.365,0:01:10.422 in open source for a long time.[br]Sumana, what is your passion? 0:01:10.521,0:01:13.935 I would say I have two main passions. 0:01:14.037,0:01:18.689 One of them is making people laugh.[br]Through stand-up comedy, through 0:01:18.787,0:01:24.368 extremely silly web apps, my writing[br]and things like that. 0:01:24.461,0:01:27.438 The fanvid that you just saw, for [br]instance. 0:01:27.565,0:01:33.256 But the other passion, the one that I[br]spend more time, and certainly have been 0:01:33.318,0:01:37.511 spending a lot of my career on, is, I[br]really care a lot about empowering people, 0:01:37.605,0:01:43.194 especially marginalized and especially[br]underprivileged peope, using technology. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And sometimes that means[br]working on technology that does that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 empowering, such as MediaWiki,[br]the software behind Wikipedia. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Sometimes it means teaching people[br]how to be better users of technology 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 through making or leading trainings and[br]tutoring people, mentoring people, and so on. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And sometimes it means helping get [br]lots of different diverse people into 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the world of making technology,[br]so we can all empower ourselves. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, for instance I've been involved in[br]a lot of diversity efforts on different 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 scales and at different parts of the [br]"pipeline", involved in getting diverse 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people of diverse demographics, talents,[br]abilities and backgrounds into open 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 source software. So we can all make [br]this software together, that we're all 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 using to improve our own lives. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - So, Sumana, how did you get involved[br]in open source in the first place? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - My origin story is a guy named Seth [br]Schoen. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Seth Schoen is a technologist, currently[br]at the Electronic Freedom .. Frontier 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Foundation. Sorry. Like everybody else,[br]I accidentally say freedom when I should 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 say Frontier. But, back in 1998, when we[br]met, we were both undergraduates at 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the University of California at Berkeley.[br]And I was hanging out with nerds. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 These were the kinds of geeks who[br]made fun of me because I referred 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to individual "Star Trek: The Next [br]Generation" episodes by title instead 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of stardate. So, clearly that made me a[br]humanities person. [laughs] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I, through one of them, met this guy,[br]who was introduced to me partly as: 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "He's such a free software zealot, he[br]won't use Windows at all." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And that was Seth Schoen.[br]And Seth introduced me to the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 side of open source and free software[br]that's about empowering ourselves 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and everybody, by making sure[br]that everybody has control over the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 software that we use and that in some[br]sense controls us. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The connection between that and all these[br]other values that I care a lot about, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like everbody having a say, everybody[br]having a fair chance. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And he introduced me, for instance, to[br]Slashdot, which at the time was sort of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the open source New York Times.[br]And which incidentally is, through 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a serious of links, the way that I met[br]Leonard Richardson, who is now my 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 husband, actually, and who has been[br]sort of my partner in a lot of these 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 endeavors for the past decade plus. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Seth was a fantastic mentor and guide.[br]He was the kind of guy, and still is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 absolutely the kind of guy, where,[br]you ask him a question because you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 don't have enough information. And it[br]would never even cross his mind to think 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of ridiculing you, or using this as an[br]opportunity for a dominance display. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He always thought really deeply about,[br]"Hold on, what do you need to understand 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 here that you didn't understand, that[br]caused you to ask that question", 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then he would help you build your[br]mental model. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And he was such a gentle teacher to me[br]exactly when I needed it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so to me that's what open source is. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He was my role model, not just in terms[br]of trying to live values like freedom, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and free speech, and empowering each[br]other. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And it was very soon after that [br]I switched to Linux, in the late 90s, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which meant that I had to deal with hand[br]configuring PPP and all the rest of it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But also, he was my guide and my role[br]model in seeing what this world is and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ought to be, in terms of all of us [br]sharing and teaching each other. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I recently talked to someone else who[br]said that his role model in getting into 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 open source had been Linus Torvalds.[br]So he had learned to take people down. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He had learned that the way to build [br]yourself is by shouting and others 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and being quite rude and snarky to them,[br]because then there will be people who 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 applaud you for that clever snarkiness. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I'm very, very grateful that in 1998,[br]that's not who I ran into. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - And where do you think that comes from,[br]that snarkiness that you sometimes find in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 open source communities? Do you have a[br]theory around, like, how these behaviors 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 develop and why people exhibit them? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - I find that basically all the human[br]communities that I've ever been 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a part of include some elements of[br]people being competitive, and of people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 being nurturing and collaborative. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think if I look in open source,[br]I can find both of those things. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If I look in the community of people[br]who read and write romance novels -- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I've recently started reading romance --[br]then I would also find that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If you look in sports, I mean, you'll find[br]that anywhere. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I think that the Linux kernel[br]community bears very strongly the stamp 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the person who founded it, and who[br]by norm -- conversations are normative. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Part of how we know what is okay to say,[br]is we look at what other people are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 saying, right? And we look at what people[br]get praise or punishment for doing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I think that's part of what people [br]see. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think there's also, of course, as I say,[br]pockets and corners, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You look at the Python community and[br]you look at how Guido van Rossum has 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 acted in his capacity as a leader for[br]many, many years. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And overall you're going to see, there[br]is some snark, there is humor. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You watch his keynote from PyCon this[br]year, PyCon North America in Montreal 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that just happended last month. And you[br]hear laughter, but it's gentle laughter, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and it's often self-deprecating laughter. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He talked, he spent a tremendous amount[br]of his keynote talking about the reasons 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on a genuine, legitimate, understandable[br]psychological level, and sort of a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 lifecycle level, why projects go[br]unmaintained and fall into disrepair. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so he approached that question not[br]from, "Okay, now we need to punish those 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people and I'm gonna make fun of those[br]people" kind of a perspective. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But he said, "This is going to happen,[br]this is a natural part of life. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Let us engage in useful conversation,[br]so those tasks can then get taken up by 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the next generation." Which seems to me[br]to be a much healthier approach. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so I think there's some amount of[br]top-down leadership and role models and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 what not. I think there's also some element[br]of, it is a simple fact that text online, because 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it doesn't bear with it things like body[br]language and oral tone, it is easy for us 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as risk-averse creatures, as insecure[br]people, to read even neutral words as 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 hostile. I ran into this many times myself[br]as a community manager. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 People who do code review know it.[br]People who are trying to give written 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 criticism even to people in a peer writing[br]group or something like that know it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And we added emoticons to our lives partly[br]in order to help compensate for this. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I think in that environment, sometimes[br]it's easy to just go with it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To go with that current, and to go with[br]that flow. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And say, well, if it's going to be read as[br]hostile anyway -- perhaps this even 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 happens on a subconscious level --[br]then I may as well hone that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And there are a lot of people --[br]I'm actually a little bit jealous 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the people who decided from a young[br]age on the Internet that they would try 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 playing around with being known through[br]different identities, and hide behind 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 pseudonyms, and hone their flaming skills[br]and stuff like that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Because it is a genuinely valuable skill[br]to be able to be rude to somebody 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 else on the Internet in such a way that[br]other people will applaud you and back 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you up. I do not have that skill. And one[br]reason why I don't have that skill is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because I never practiced it. Because from[br]a very young age I decided, everything 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that I said on the public Internet, I was[br]going to sign my entire name to. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And from a very young age I knew that[br]was going to be an unusual and unique 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 calling card, and I would not be hide,[br]I would never be able to say, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "It was that other Sumana Harihareswara[br]who said those terrible things." [laughs] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So I ddn't learn that skill. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And that's one reason why there are [br]kinds of leadership, that no one calls 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 leadership, generally, that I am not [br]going to be able to do.