The FAQ

What is this site?

Open(ish) Machine Learning News is a collection of links and thoughts from me, Luis Villa, about the overlap of machine learning and various opens (source, data, etc.) I'm pondering publishing weekly but we'll see how it goes :)

Why ML?

ML is both the most exciting and the most fiendishly complex tech change of this millenium. How the open movement(s) grapple and interact with this profound change will be fascinating and important.

Why Open(ish)?

While individual practitioners of open have always known that open is about many things, the formal definitions of Open (and Free) have over-focused on intellectual property licensing.

I will try to take a broader view of what "open" means, including community, governance, ethics, business, and the broader culture's view of open. More on that in my essay "why open(ish)".

Why Luis?

Fair question! If you don't know me, I'm a (very bad) developer turned (reasonably competent) attorney, with a career-long focus on free and open source software, data, and culture.

My work experience has ranged from a startup in the original Year Of The Linux Desktop to Mozilla to Wikipedia, and lots of for-profits as well (from several big companies whose products you use every day to many startups that fought the good fight but didn't make it).

Outside of work, I've volunteered with the Open Source Initiative, W3C, the GNOME Foundation, OpenStreetMap, and OpenET (open water data), among others.

I think this background will help me provide useful insight into how the cultures of open and ML are interacting and evolving.