A mammoth laser cutter. An Arduino development kit. A feminist hackerspace. Addie Wagenknecht, Rianne Trujillo, and Stefanie Wuschitz are from different places and backgrounds, but they have one thing in common: They're all creating art with open source hardware. From the surreal landscapes of New Mexico to the galleries of New York, they're also creating new communities and leveling the obstacles that have limited women's influence in their chosen fields.
It all started with the iPhone.
In 2007, Addie Wagenknecht was a graduate student in New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). The iPhone appealed to her—its elegant design, the simplicity of the touch screen. She knew she wanted to experiment with it. She wanted to use it, understand it, and maybe even turn it into something else.
She wanted to tinker.
Addie realized that she wasn't alone in wanting to test and develop for the nascent hardware. She also wasn't in a position to do it. The iPhone's multi-touch technology was proprietary, and the tools to access it were expensive: $100,000 in most cases.
To a student already spending exorbitant amounts of money on textbooks and rent, the money to mess with an iPhone seemed out of reach.
Just as the excitement built up, it began to fade. "How do you make the seemingly inaccessible, accessible," Addie wondered, "other than making it yourself or finding someone else who can make it for you?"
Rather than abandon the prospect, Addie decided to build it herself. She set out to develop for a multi-touch system using open source hardware and software. As it turned out, this was harder than she imagined.
Addie grew up in the computer generation of the early 1980s. She played "Oregon Trail" in kindergarten, and when her neighbor down the street got a Nintendo, she played "Super Mario Bros.," "Duck Hunt," and "Skate or Die!" for hours. Her mom had a Macintosh SE. All of this technology was just part of her environment. And none of it was sacred.
It wasn't long before Addie realized she could make art with the technology around her. Amongst the various programs and games she was beginning to use to express herself creatively, Kid Pix, a bitmap drawing program launched for Macintosh in 1989, was particularly useful.
"It had all these sounds and cool effects and paintbrushes and explosives you could put on paper, and you could make these crazy glitchy pieces in Mac Paint," Addie said.
Addie's environment, the freedom to experiment, and her natural inclination to create fused art into her life. She felt no pressure to make things. She just wanted to.
"I don't know if there was a point where everything with art manifested," she said. "It was just something I always think has been a nervous twitch that I just do because I need to, not because I had a reason why. It's just to document or express things. I never thought of it as a career path."
She studied multimedia and computer science while attending the University of Oregon and thought she would become a front-end web developer. She began taking game development classes, and dreamed of working at Electronic Arts, the pioneer of the home computer games industry. She worked at a few independent gaming companies after college and thought game development was a viable career path: somewhat creative, yet mathematical.
"[Art] was just something I always think has been a nervous twitch that I just do because I need to, not because I had a reason why."
Seattle Black Hawk Paint performances courtesy of Michael Clinard is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Addie continued her graduate education at the ITP, where she found like-minded people—the ones who also wanted to experiment, and create, and break things. She thought more about seriously pursuing art, but realized she didn't have any mentors or blueprints for how to make it a career.
Addie eventually found a kindred spirit in both art and tech.
She had created a tracker that used a laser for data processing for an exhibition show at the ITP, and it was similar to a project that another artist was developing. The artist, James Powderly, happened upon Addie's work at the show.
He introduced himself to Addie. "Hi, my name's James Powderly, and I developed this thing that's similar to yours, but yours actually looks better." That was just the start of their work together. A few months later, Addie was interviewing for a residency at the Eyebeam Art & Technology Center, and Powderly was on the interview panel.
Powderly went on to become one of Addie's greatest supporters and one of the first people who advocated for her work. He exemplified the punk rock side of open source. He stood for working through problems when they seemed confounding. And he did it all with a mega dose of positivity.
Optimization of Parenthood by Addie Wagenknecht & Nortd Labs is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
(gold) brickiphone by Addie Wagenknecht is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
During Addie's time at Eyebeam, she joined the Free Art & Technology (F.A.T.) Lab, a collaborative that focused on having fun with open culture, technology, and art—and bringing the lulz to their work. The group wanted to create art and programs that people could appropriate freely and use outside the lab. In addition to giving away their final pieces, the group shared the processes and tools they used to make their art.
Art is often a proprietary industry. Artists tend to keep their approaches, inspirations, and processes to themselves. They want to give something unique to their audiences. By bucking that tendency, F.A.T. Lab made art more accessible, understandable, and relatable.
One of Addie's most significant open hardware projects came out of her fellowship. Prior to her residency, she had never used laser cutters because, like the hardware necessary to develop for iPhone, they weren't accessible. Once again, a tool that allowed creators to build and make artwork was becoming ubiquitous—if you had money to burn.
Addie didn't.
But she did have an idea. Addie and fellow ITP colleague Stefan Hechenberger decided to make laser cutters more accessible to the masses. With $20,000 raised via Kickstarter, they developed an open source laser cutter in six months. The Lasersaur was as reliable as commercial laser cutters, and it was available to any artist, maker, or scientist who wanted to use it—or improve it.
To build the infrastructure to support future open source projects like the Lasersaur, Addie and Stefan created Nortd Labs. They modeled Nortd on commercial operations, complete with bills of materials, instructions, and a framework for creating and sharing open source projects. The makers at Nortd created projects with the hopes that the community would build upon them.
yagersaur day 2 by Addie Wagenknecht is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
new lasersaur stickers have arrived by Addie Wagenknecht is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
lasersaur at CMU/STUDIO of Creative Inquiry by Addie Wagenknecht is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
lasersaur/nortd labs at STUDIO for creative inquiry/CMU by Addie Wagenknecht is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0In 2011, Addie developed an interest in cryptology and blockchain technology, and it started appearing in her artwork. She worked in hackerspaces and shifted her focus from solo work to finding a community of people she could learn from, and vice versa. She looked to cryptology conferences, and, not surprisingly, they were primarily geared toward and attended by men. She knew other women were working in the field, but who were they? And what were they doing?
At F.A.T. Lab, only 2 of 25 people were women. While she saw the men in the group as brothers who supported her work, she wondered what a female collaborative meant, and what the cryptology landscape would look like if more of them existed. She started considering how to create one.
In 2014, she was approached by the Studio for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). The director of the program, Golan Levin, is an artist and educator who works on projects combining artistic expression and technology. Golan was familiar with Addie's work on surveillance, including paintings she made using drones. Those "Black Hawk Paint" pieces had been part of Shellshock, her first American solo exhibit in New York. Another piece, "Asymmetric Love," featured a chandelier composed of closed-circuit television cameras and ethernet internet cables.
Both suggested to Golan that Addie would be an excellent candidate for a research grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Performing Arts.
Asymmetric Love High Res by Addie Wagenknecht is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Seattle Black Hawk Paint performances courtesy of Michael Clinard is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0With the financial and academic support from Golan, The Warhol Foundation, and CMU, Addie gathered a group of women—writers, artists, researchers, and engineers working in cryptology—in the same space for a week to examine how themes like privacy, security, surveillance, anonymity, and large-scale data aggregation can be problematic in the arts, culture, and society.
"I wanted to throw us all in a room. Give us Wi-Fi, keys, and let's just see what happens," Addie said. "[Golan] was willing to do that, and that's how it started. All of us women ended up at Carnegie Mellon, in a strange space of never having met offline."
In the group's words, Deep Lab collective was created:
"Because we wanted to be together. Because the original computers were women. Because it can't not. Because we are stronger as a pack. Because I'm trying to stay connected to the self. Because sharing is caring. Because we want to dig deeper. Because girls just wanna have fun. Because you shouldn't have to ask for permission."
The group's week together was part hackathon, part charrette, part micro-conference, and their work represents what is possible when open culture and open humanity combine. The project yielded a 240-page book, a video album of 10 presentations by the members, and an 18-minute documentary film. All of these resources are publicly available through the Studio for Creative Inquiry.
Deep Lab book by the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry
"Because we wanted to be together. Because the original computers were women. Because it can't not. Because we are stronger as a pack. Because I'm trying to stay connected to the self. Because sharing is caring. Because we want to dig deeper. Because girls just wanna have fun. Because you shouldn't have to ask for permission."
Cyberfeminist researchers at work
Still from Deep Lab documentary
Addie WagenknechtThe Lasersaur project landed Addie a speaking gig at one of the first Open Source Hardware Summits. Through these events, she became part of the open source community, meeting new collaborators and eventually becoming a chair of the summit itself.
Addie has used her experience launching multiple open source hardware projects and reached agreements to sell her pieces in galleries around the world. She's using her success to ensure that aspiring artists don't have to clear the same hurdles she did—especially women.
"For me, I think a lot of the lectures I give as an artist aren't 'Okay, here's my work,' it's 'Here's how you do the art thing,' because no one ever taught me. This is a business, and if you want to survive, you have to know a few things. There's this interesting thing being a woman, because art majors are 86% female, but when you get into the professional realm, it's often like less than 2% are represented females. So we have to think, where are these women going?"
"So we have to think, where are these women going?"
Addie mentors aspiring artists who don't know how to make art a career. These days, she often speaks to undergrad or graduate classes of would-be professional artists. She devotes a lot of those talks to "things where there's total lack of transparency"—how to actually install a piece, approaching the media and galleries, and archiving your work.
Addie also mentors two young art students from CMU. They've both graduated and are trying to find galleries to sell their work, and now Addie is helping them navigate this murky path by connecting them to knowledgeable people in their fields.
Addie supports other artists because she believes collaboration ultimately makes better work and keeps artists from abandoning projects. Or—worst case—leaving the industry entirely. She shows artists how she's made her works, and introduces newcomers to other more established artists who may help or guide. She gives recommendations and teaches people how to work with tools to make the experience easier, and she lays processes out for them.
Addie sharing opening remarks at the 2017 Open Source Hardware Association Summit
For her entire career, Addie has worked to optimize the processes for creating art with open source technology, open culture, and open humanity. She always believed that recreating the wheel—or the touch screen—is not necessary.
In 2008, Addie and her Nortd Labs partner Stefan Hechenberger created the CUBIT multi-touch system using Diffused Illumination (DI), a DIY multi-touch technology in which an infrared light is shined at a screen from either above or below the surface. CUBIT was designed to help redefine visual computing and depart from the mouse pointer paradigm. Addie could develop for the iPhone using open source hardware and software, and enable others to as well.
By developing projects like CUBIT and the Lasersaur, Addie had made the inaccessible accessible. Instead of resigning herself to the fact that technology was expensive and some people were not willing to help, she was able to fashion the tools she needed, open them up, and mentor the next generation of open source hardware creators. Her work proves that in order to create works that have long-lasting effects and will continue to evolve and change, it's more important to break things, experiment, and figure out how they work on your own terms, so you can ultimately share them with the world.
Still from the interactive touch tables at the Anderson-Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum
Rianne Trujillo spent her childhood in awe of the natural world.
While other kids her age spent hours watching TV or fighting over who got to use the family computer, Rianne was riding bikes with the neighborhood kids and exploring the surrounding rocky New Mexico expanses.
She spent a lot of time exploring and learning about new places. She loved to draw—inspired by works by Van Gogh and Georgia O'Keeffe—and go on roadtrips throughout New Mexico and surrounding states with her grandparents. Together, they passed through surreal, open landscapes; to the flat-topped mountains; gorges; unique rock formations; and multicolored sunsets while moving onto their next destinations—usually a museum or a national park. She soaked up the experiences and the opportunities to learn about people and places.
Little did she know that one day she'd design and program exhibitions to help people do just that.
Rianne is a visiting instructor at New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU). She's also a lead developer with the Cultural Technology Department Lab (CTDL), a research and development program at NMHU, where university faculty work with museum partners to build open source hardware for exhibits. "When it comes down to it, I'm most passionate about learning," Rianne said. "As a developer, I think it's important to stay up to date with technology and in doing so, you have to be willing to learn new ways for development." Several of the topics and frameworks she covers in class this year will inform research she does to create solutions for cultural institutions.
Rianne speaking at the 2017 Open Source Hardware Association Summit
"When it comes down to it, I'm most passionate about learning."
The CTDL group works primarily with cultural and historical museums in New Mexico and with national parks and historic sites across the country to create technology and design solutions.
One of these solutions is the Museduino—an open source hardware development kit—entirely built in-house.
If you've seen a museum exhibition with sensors and buttons you have to click to interact with the content or to learn more—for example, learning about animals that went extinct after the Ice Age—you've experienced the kind of technology the Museduino helps museum staff build and implement.
Rianne gets the most satisfaction from projects that pose the biggest challenges, like one she worked on with Acadia National Park in 2015. "For me, it's really nice to break away from screen-based interaction and actually build something for the physical world," Rianne said.
The park wanted the CTDL team to create a touch rail that, once built, would allow visitors to touch the left or right side and compare and contrast sounds of marsh life and open ocean ecosystems. Rianne and her team were going to use two touch sensors encased in a metal clamp placed over the rail. Ideally, this would allow visitors to touch the different interactive parts of the exhibit. But in reality, that wasn't possible. Because they chose to make the rail out of metal, every part of it was conductive, not just the switch.
Conductivity nearly foiled CTDL's work at Acadia National Park
Capacitive touch with Museduino
Demo of the Shorebird egg-matching game exhibit at Acadia National ParkThe team was at an impasse. Acadia is a part of the federal government with an established budget, so they had to look at other options—quickly.
The team ran lots of tests to try and isolate the switch from the rail, without success. It just didn't work. Eventually they tried plastic arcade buttons. The buttons are easy to use and interact with, and don't come with the worry of conductivity. With that in place, the exhibit was complete.
Rianne and the CTDL team worked on another project at Grinnell College with a different set of challenges. They paired up with 14 students and worked on 13 different nighttime installations over 5 days in Iowa—in February. These art students were new to electronics, so the CTDL staff taught them Arduino basics and demonstrated the possibilities of different sensors/actuators. "This gave the students a better understanding of how they could incorporate sensors and actuators into their work," Rianne said.
Rianne and colleagues hadn't considered how low temperatures may affect electronics. It was February, and it happened to be -5 degrees outside. Many of the students opted for outdoor locations for their installations.
CTDL team helping install Christine's light and sound piece on a Grinnell College campus bench
Cheng's insomniac sheep in the snow"It was at this point that we ran into challenges," Rianne said. "Many of the proposed installation spaces did not have access to power outlets nearby, and they had to be relocated. For those that could not be relocated, we had to rely on battery power or several extension cables." The Arduino is rated at well below 0 degrees, but 9V batteries lasted about 35 minutes. The cold caused other problems, too: Wires became too weak and brittle to conduct electricity. Duct tape stopped sticking, and sensors stopped functioning.
Despite all of this, the installations worked, and the tour went on. The CTDL researchers learned that, next time they work in such severe conditions, they'll need to stock up on handwarmers for their batteries. With help from her resilient and supportive team, Rianne persevered and taught the Grinnell students that they can overcome obstacles with creative thinking and grit.
"For me, it's really nice to break away from screen-based interaction and actually build something for the physical world."
CTDL often works with smaller institutions whose first steps are digitization. Online collections can be a great way for the public to learn more about art and history, especially for individuals who can't visit the institution in person. As Rianne and her team have shown, though, there are many ways to make art and technology accessible—not just to the public, but museums themselves.
When museums use proprietary software and hardware, technology they heavily invested in often lies dormant when it can't be updated. Rianne and CTDL believe that using open source technology benefits museums and cultural institutions with limited budgets and staff, because they can make the most of what they have. Open source software is free, the hardware is fairly inexpensive, and projects are well documented online. Museum staff have the power to resolve any issues on their own.
Rianne in DenverGoing into new projects, Rianne is always thinking about engagement, and what types of technology she can use to highlight new aspects of existing collections and, ultimately, intrigue visitors. There's experimentation and, with that, there's also failure. And learning, as Rianne experienced at Acadia and Grinnell.
Rianne believes museums can go beyond sharing their collections by sharing some of the hardware they use behind the scenes.
By explaining their installations and sharing their tools, processes, and methods, museums and cultural professionals can help end some often-held stereotypes: that technology is hard, that you need a computer science degree to understand and use it, and that you can't build or maintain it in-house. It's not, you don't, and you definitely can.
While open hardware is still a male-dominated field, Rianne is hopeful about the prospects of more women getting involved in projects. There is a growing number of young girls and women who want to work in open hardware and other STEM fields now, thanks in part to inclusive programs and makerspaces that focus on STEM education, programming, and physical computing.
"Although the ratio of men to women hasn't changed significantly, it's important to remind ourselves that we can do anything—regardless of gender. I think if you are interested in open hardware and love the work that you are doing, that is all that matters."
Author and Rianne in Denver
"It's important to remind ourselves that we can do anything—regardless of gender."
Rianne's work and learning don't stop here. She and the CTDL team are in the middle of another run of the Museduino. They've been working on a few changes to it: they started out using ExpressPCB and were designing within that software, but now they've switched over to Kicad. They're gearing up for the next iteration of changes to that board and implementing them in new projects.
She's also now teaching the class that initially sparked her interest in open hardware: physical computing.
When Rianne was growing up, she loved riding in the backseat of her grandparents' car, drawing, and looking out at the New Mexico skyline. Now, as an adult, she's on the forefront of using open source hardware and principles to bring that same love of learning and curiosity to people who might otherwise be denied it.
When you look around the room and no one looks like you, it can feel claustrophobic and lonely at the same time. Stefanie Wuschitz knows this all too well.
When she graduated, Stefanie realized she didn't have the skills to program her own media art or the money to hire someone to program her projects. So she did what many people do: She started searching for a community that could teach her. She spent time in hackerspaces and going to tech meetups, labs, and workshops.
But she started noticing how isolating it feels to be the only woman in a room full of men.
There was one place, though, that was different: the Eclectic Tech Carnival, a gathering organized by a Dutch feminist programmer's collective called the Gender Changers. They were all fired up, in their 60s, and a bunch of badasses.
"...It was all women, or people who define themselves as women. And I'd never seen cooler tech ladies before. They were all about open source, and they were really particular about why open source, and why Linux, and what it means, and how it's part of your own emancipatory practice on how to do things, fix things, or create things through open source technology."
Seeing so many women using open source technology to fuel their projects inspired her to learn how to do it, too. And it also made her wonder: What if there was a place where women could experience the excitement, energy, and passion of the Eclectic Tech Carnival year-round?
"They were all about open source, and they were really particular about why open source, and why linux, and what it means..."
Tech ladies by Stefanie Wuschitz
When Stefanie returned from the Eclectic Tech Carnival, she enrolled in New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) to learn how to infuse her artistic projects with technology—open source hardware and software, to be exact. Her cohort at ITP was diverse: designers, actors, writers, and techies. The group was equally split between men and women. Many students were from outside the United States. The director of the program, Red Burns, pushed the students to work with and learn from each other.
From there, Stefanie embarked on a digital art residency at Humlab—a Swedish digital humanities program that invites artists and designers to do art-based research. At Humlab, Stefanie co-founded Mz* Baltazar's Laboratory to create a space for women to work on open source technology projects year-round in the spirit of the Electric Tech Carnival and to continue the Arduino programming work she'd begun at ITP. Her goal was to establish a space dedicated to the creation of art and technology from the female perspective.
Feminism is essential to Stefanie's work. So is exploring the body, and the ways art can deepen the connection to one's self. Another core element is peer-to-peer production, the ways that people can pool resources, and how those efforts can lead to social change. Central to all these themes are self-expression, finding and having a voice, participating in the public, and questioning our understanding of identity.
While traveling through Italy at age 15, Stefanie went to an art exhibition and saw a piece by Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist. The video, "Ever is Over All," features a woman in a beautiful blue dress walking down a city street in slow motion, smiling and jumping and happy. She smashes a flower-shaped hammer into car windows, seemingly at random. A female police officer sees her, nods a polite hello, and carries on with her day.
Pipilotti Rist, Ever Is Over All, 1997
Pipilotti Rist, Ever Is Over All, 1997"Wow, an aggressive, happy woman," Stefanie thought when she saw the piece. "And she's not going to jail for that!"
The video opened Stefanie's eyes to what women are capable of. It also showed her the power of art: how she could freely express herself, even in ways that may shock others.
What happened behind the scenes moved Stefanie as much as the images onscreen. The video's art direction and its mixing of different formats and media impressed her. She began learning to master these techniques herself. When she was in high school, an art teacher taught her computer arts and how to edit video. She learned early on that technology was a way to help you express yourself through art. It could be the tool, the medium, or the subject of the art itself.
"Being connected to yourself is always important. And it's also important to Mz* Baltazar's Laboratory. So we don't only curate exhibitions, or invite curators to do an exhibition, or do workshops, or invite people to do workshops. We also conceptualize exhibitions and concepts. This is why most people on our team are at the intersection of research, feminism, and art."
Stefanie and Mz* Baltazar's Laboratory
"This is why most people on our team are at the intersection of research, feminism, and art."
Stefanie and her co-founder started Mz* Baltazar's Laboratory after Eclectic Tech Carnival showed her the power of coming together, sharing knowledge, and encouraging each other. She wanted to create a space for woman-identified people to create and experience art made with electronics and open hardware.
She organized another Eclectic Tech Carnival and modeled it on the format of the Gender Changers' event. Stefanie organized hers in Sweden, and women she'd met in prior programs and art organizations swarmed to it. It was inspiring to see women from different backgrounds, places, and disciplines come together to create and experiment. She wanted it to go on forever, so she started organizing weekly meetings based on the same principles.
Initially, some of Stefanie's male friends and colleagues attended, but she realized that many female artists slowly stopped coming because they didn't feel the space was truly for them. Once Stefanie began accepting female artists only—including transgender women and gender nonconforming people—women started attending en masse and bringing great ideas along with them.
"When I gave them access to the open source technology and hardware, they didn't make a robot or a car, but rather they created things like fire-breathing monsters. And I thought, 'This is how I want to use technology.'"
"When I gave them access to the open source technology and hardware, they didn't make a robot or a car, but rather they created things like fire-breathing monsters. And I thought, 'This is how I want to use technology.' I don't want to go down the usual path where technology is only used to solve problems. I wanted it to be used for artistic purposes as well."
Mz* Baltazar's Laboratory now offers an equal mix of workshops and art exhibitions.
On any given day, a visitor can learn to use open source mapping tools, install Linux, use open source audio tools, and more. Stefanie sees the Lab as a safe space for beginners—from female artists who've never had a solo show to walk-in visitors who've never been to an art gallery or hackerspace. She wants people to see it as a free, open, friendly place where they can be themselves. They can talk openly discuss meaningful subjects with people who will hear them and listen.
The Lab breaks down the stereotypes that soldering, coding, or experimenting with technology are strictly masculine pursuits. They're simply not an issue at Mz* Baltazar's Lab. It's ok to break things, or try something new.
"Everyone identifies with each other, mirrors themselves in the other, so it's kind of like a cloning effect," Stefanie said. "They (women participants) think, 'Oh, there are others like me. If she can program like that, and she's really like me, I can program, too.' I think people learn slowly because they're fighting something in themselves that says, 'Can I do it? Am I allowed to do it?' There's so many thoughts in between the lines."
That's why Stefanie and her colleagues built a space that's sensitive to these fears and the women who hold them. And it's working.
"They (women participants) think, 'Oh, there are others like me. If she can program like that, and she's really like me, I can program, too.'"
Stefanie presenting a workshop for Mz* Baltazar's Laboratory, January 2018Launching Mz* Baltazar's Lab hasn't been easy. Austria is facing a major political shift. The movement is affecting organizations like Mz* Baltazar's Lab that depend on the government for funding technology and arts-based programs. The lab doesn't charge membership fees, and Stefanie doesn't plan to.
There are other challenges. It's hard for a collaborative of freelance artists to keep regular hours, and there's turnover in leadership.
Taken together, these problems could end the feminist hackerspace. But Stefanie continues to foster a space for women interested in using open source hardware and software. She believes donations, outside funding, public support, and creative thinking will keep the space alive.
Not long ago, there were few places for Stefanie and others like her. So she created her own. Her passion, the inspiration she's found in other women and artists, and the support of like-minded women have helped her sustain a space for feminist hacking, creativity, and artistic expression that leaves no one else behind.
"Open source is sharing information so that it's repeatable. It's also a transparency as well as a lifestyle. If you're into open source, you have to live it."
"To me, I focus on being able to share, and also being free to update and modify technology, software, and tools with open source. The more we share, the less we have to reinvent the wheel."
"Open source allows for creative hacking. Hacking for me is a very broad practice of appropriating and extending things and making them your own, on the condition that you share them again."
What's the next story?
