The necessary conditions of the triumph of evil are well known, as Edmund Burke famously said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." In this humorous keynote from O'Reilly's 2005 Open Source Convention, Danny O'Brien explores the factors necessary for the triumph of evil in the open source world.
Using Burke's well-known quote and other platitudes as a springboard, O'Brien takes a humorous look at evil in society as a whole and the open source movement in particular. In the end, though, O'Brien's talk is a call to arms to the open source movement in the battle against software patents.
Danny O'Brien is the Activist Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. His job is to help the EFF's membership in making their voice heard: in government and regulatory circles, in the marketplace, and with the wider public. Danny has documented and fought for digital rights in the UK for over a decade, where he also assisted in building tools of open democracy like Fax Your MP. He co-edits the award-winning NTK newsletter, has written and presented science and travel shows for the BBC, performed a solo show about the Net in the London's West End, and once successfully lobbied a cockney London pub to join Richard M. Stallman in a spontaneous demonstration of Bulgarian folk dance.
Resources:
This free podcast is from our Open Source Conference series.
For The Conversations Network: