2026-03-17 –, Room Auditorium
How the Hare programming language community grew from one BDFL and a ragtag group of early hackers to a productive, sociable, and egalitarian community of happy hackers with a lightweight and effective model of participatory governance.
The Hare programming language started in December 2019 with a small, secret prototype and gradually built out a community of curious adventure-seekers who stumbled into its open, but well-hidden, borders. Once unveiled to the public, this community's governance, policy-making, and day-to-day conduct of its affairs grew and evolved with careful deliberation into its present-day form, with 11 co-maintainers of various disciplines and over 100 contributors.
This talk will take the audience through each stage of this journey and highlight each of the changes made to its governance over time, explaining how each decision was weighed against our values and practices and helped us grow into a thriving community.
Drew DeVault is a prolific author of free software, founding and building communities around projects including aerc, Hare, Sway, SourceHut, wlroots, and dozens more, as well as a prolific writer and advocate both for free software generally and for a just free software movement that we can be proud of participating in.