We are very excited announce Aral Balkan, founder and lead designer of Ind.ie, as our Guest of Honor! Aral thinks we are paying too much for our free software, saying, “Free is a lie because it is a concealed barter,” and “The cost of free is our human rights.”
Along with creating a manifesto for experience-based, privacy respecting open source design, the company is working on a free open source social network client called Heartbeat, with the idea that it will be the core of a peer-to-peer consumer platform that lets you share what you want without becoming a monetized statistic of the “free” business model.
Aral says, “Traditional free and open source organizations are unequipped to provide the solutions we need in the post-Snowden world.”
Aral will be a keynote speaker on one evening during Penguicon; security specialist and Guest of Honor Emeritus Bruce Schneier will deliver a keynote speech on the other evening.