BaseKamp, a non-commercial organization of people researching and co-developing interdisciplinary, self-organized art projects and based in Philadelphia, has members around the world.  This Saturday a few of those members will provide the opening keynote at fosscon and we’ll get to learn a bit more about them in the process.

Before we get there, though, here’s a little bit on why this matters.  We’re going to a free and open source software conference, and of course we all know why we are there, but sometimes we tend to focus a little too much on the software.  Software is important,  freedom in it’s use and distribution is important, but there is more out there than just software, and the sort of work BaseKamp does is just as important.

BaseKamp is exploring ways that communities can accomplish things together.  They redefine what a group is all about, and empower people to experiment with how we live and work together creatively.   Beyond this, they help educate themselves and others about how to be part of this group, this community, and how to contribute towards a brighter future.

We are looking forward at seeing just what they bring to the table, and how it can help us all expand our horizons beyond just code to all the other things that make up this world, and our software.  Just this week they did a great session on free art license.  Stuff like this is just as important as all our efforts in software, and our efforts even depend on it sometime!