For the closing session it would be lovely to have a laptop with a Free/Libre operating system (not macOS pls pls pls). Some explanations :D
Persons that are available to lend their computer for this occasion:
| Status | Subtype | Assigned | Task | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resolved | • debt | T369234 Wikimania Hackathon 2024: Showcase / Closing Session | |||
| Invalid | None | T371959 Closing Session: present all sessions from a computer with a Free Software operating system \o/ |
The closing session is already in progress, so I don't get the purpose of this request (or was this created for fun?).
(?) Please double-check the creation date of this task, and please read its description 🌈
May I ask who is the kind person who is generously lending their laptop (the mac) on the podium all these recent years?
I'm in the Wikimedia movement, I'm used to hitting an edit button if something feels wrong, but here I'm having a hard time figuring out where that simple button is. Thanks for your help.
I get the spirit but I would not want to force folks who over years have gathered expertise and established workflows to smoothly run an important aspect of an event to use other folks' hardware (if it was me it would stress me out). It's the personal freedom of each individual which software they prefer to run on their systems and IMHO that freedom outweighs ideology aspects (YMMV), sorry.
Using macOS in private is perfectly fine. Forcing more than 30 volunteers to use closed-source Apple software products, is totally wrong. Especially, if the person who is enforcing macOS to volunteers is a WMF employee of WMF, I would add, let us take a moment to reflect that we need to change something.
As I already said, it's like keeping a "Coca Cola®" bottle on the table for the whole duration of the event. We can just at least TRY to reduce its impact. For example:
Forcing more than 30 volunteers to use closed-source
As far as I know noone forces anyone to present. In any case, I'm glad that as far as I am aware from previous years, nobody suffers from permanent damage after having been exposed for full two minutes without protection gear to clicking some keys and buttons on a machine not running someone's preferred software.
noone forces anyone to present
While I know you and I appreciate this sympathetic sentence, unfortunately I indeed understood that the only way to present something was "use macOS and shutup Valerio" - this is why I honestly walked out of the courtroom crying. But I'm sure this is something I have to keep to myself.
Hi @debt - thanks for your work on the closing session / parent task.
Can I contact the kind person who usually offers their personal computer on the wmhack podium to help volunteers in presenting?
I can promise I don't want to steal/destroy this laptop or change their personal operating system preferences and/or impose my choices or whatever was said (?). I just want to evaluate if we can press F11 in 2025 to hide some icons, and/or adopt Mozilla Firefox to do not promote the Google company, or this kind of minimal changes that will reduce a bit our indirect promotion of external companies that may be not aligned to our mission. Thanks
Hello @valerio.bozzolan - yes, I brought the loaner laptop specifically to use in the Hackathon opening and closing ceremonies during Wikimania, in my role as organizer and with the tools at my disposal from the WMF.
For future Hackathons, I cannot promise that the laptop used will not be a macOS. However, if you have a specific list of things that you feel all users of that laptop will appreciate and that is possible to do on a mac to make it "more better", I will take that into consideration for future events. I am not and was not promoting the use of any particular external company.