BY H ENRY H O USTO N
OPEN SESAME
A two-day event will celebrate
and encourage the ‘open move-
ment’ in Eugene
T
here’s no such thing as a free lunch. This
can apply to open-source technology —
programs like the Mozilla Firefox internet
browser and website developer WordPress.
Although it’s free for users, people
invest time in making the technology better or
creating it in the first place.
Open Eugene Festival Presented by Emerald
Broadband marks the first meeting of the local
open-source community, says Mark Davis, co-
founder of EugeneTech, a co-op and volunteer-run
program.
When a project is open-source, it means that the
software, hardware or data are open for users to
use, access, change or distribute for free. An open-
source project can also make it easier to bring a
team together to develop a project, Davis says.
“This is the first one where we’re taking projects
and making them open at the event,” he says.
Open Eugene Festival is a two-day event
designed to work toward opening “all the things,” he
adds. The event will run Friday and Saturday, Dec.
14-15.
It will feature workshops, speakers and
entertainment — like a fiber-connected
performance from Rio de Janeiro. It will also
remind its attendees about the importance of open
source in removing barriers to the tech world.
It’s an opportunity to not only bring an open
source project you’re working on but also learn
more about the open source community in Eugene,
Davis says.
“Eugene is a haven for open source. Pretty
much everybody uses open source,” he says. “One
of the reasons to have an open festival is to get
more people contributing.”
Davis says that although many people use
open-source software and hardware in the area, the
number of people who actually contribute to these
projects is low. He says he wants the community
to come together to collaborate on some projects
and ideas so the world can see the work Eugene is
capable of.
Davis says the event will also feature speakers
from around Oregon.
Nikole Gipps, one of the presenters, plans to
focus her presentation on the role of open source
in education and how open-source programs in
education can create equitable education.
Gipps has been a developer for more than 20
years. Recently, she’s been getting more involved
with open source through developing education
curriculum that aims to remove the barriers that
teachers and students can face when introducing
technology in the classroom.
Some barriers include the cost of implementing
tech in school curriculum and how familiar teachers
are with tech to incorporate it into the classroom.
Tech programs typically focus on high-school-age
students, she says. However, many minorities and
girls have lost interest in entering the field by that age.
So, a big part of her focus on making tech
more equitable in the education is to get kids to
involved before fifth grade. That way, they have
an interest in tech before they hit middle school
and lose interest.
“I grew up when there wasn’t this stuff. I want
to give the kids something I didn’t have,” she tells
Eugene Weekly.
She adds the tech world needs more voices
in it, and that applying open source-developed
education curriculums can get more kids interested
in technology.
“I’m trying to reduce the barrier to entry,” she
says. “I don’t want a school to make a decision
between STEM and new textbooks.”
So far, Davis says, most of those attending are
contributors — those who want to either work on
their own open-source project or on projects others
are working on.
“On Saturday, you’ll see all these projects being
opened. People will work on these projects and
make them more open,” he says. “They’ll come in
a particular state of openness and leave in a better
state of openness.”
Attendees will spend some time working on the
game King Pong, a giant version of the classic Pong
video game that gained popularity in downtown
Eugene during summer.
He says there has been some demand for the
game in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but he didn’t
want to make the game and ship it. Open Eugene
Festival will be an opportunity to get a team
together to assemble the game’s plans that can then
be accessed by anyone.
Davis is a graduate of the Mozilla open
leadership initiative. Organizing and planning the
Open Eugene Festival was what he worked on
when he was in the leadership program. He says he
decided to pursue the event to elevate the message
of the importance of having an open source
community.
And, he says, being a part of the open source
community isn’t difficult. All you need to know is
how to use the internet. ■
The Open Eugene Festival is Friday and Saturday, Dec. 14-15,
at Trifoia, 1203 Willamette Street, #100. For more information
visit OpenEugene.org or join the conversation at eugslack.com.
HAPPENING
PEOPLE
BY PA U L N E E V E L
Joy Marshall ( R E V I S I T E D )
6
December 13, 2018 • eugeneweekly.com
N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 4 : The daughter of a Unitarian
minister in Birmingham, Michigan, Joy Marshall
grew up walking picket lines. “By age 6 or 7, I was
aware of social issues,” she recalls. “Civil rights,
women’s rights and farm-worker issues.” After col-
lege at the University of Michigan, Marshall spent
three years teaching middle school in Chicago,
which she calls “the hardest job in the world!”
Only later, when she was waiting tables, did she
find her calling. “God sent me a labor organizer,
Barbara Lewis,” she explains. “I found what I was
meant to do: fight for economic justice.” Her first
paid political work was Mayor Harold Washington's
re-election campaign. Marshall spent three years
with Citizen Action/Illinois in Chicago, then moved
to Eugene in 1990 and worked three years with
Oregon Fair Share before taking a break to care
for daughters Maggie and Claire. “I still worked
part-time on campaigns,” she notes. “Raising the
minimum wage in ’96 was the proudest moment
of my life.” Marshall returned to full-time work in
2001, and now serves as director of Oregon Stand
for Children (stand.org), credited with successful
school-funding campaigns in Eugene and Portland
this year.
2 0 1 8 U P D A T E : Marshall is Lane County director
of Stand for Children. “The main thing I’m work-
ing on is raising high school graduation rates by
providing career and technical education,” she
says. “Kids who take those classes graduate 15
points higher.” Stand for Children was the principal
sponsor of Oregon Ballot Measure 98 — expanding
career technical education, college-level education
opportunities and dropout-prevention strategies in
schools — that was approved by two-thirds of vot-
ers in 2016. “Our guiding principle is always serving
the kids,” Marshall says, “giving them concrete
skills to get a job out of high school, or helping them
see possibilities.”