My thinking is the hacker ethic promotes a community of people sharing
knowledge freely.
The more people that attend these talks, the better. They improve
everyone's experience by bringing knowledge and questions. Anyone who
attends these talks is participating in the community.
If someone isn't attending the talks (which are free and open to the
public), contributing their own talks (which would be an acceptable
form of membership in my mind, even if they weren't paying members),
or contributing money to alleviate the very real financial burdens of
having a space like this, how are they a part of our community?
It's a two way road. Being part of the hacker community means having
access to the research of your peers, but it also means taking on a
responsibility to contribute to the community in some way.
I want to live in a world where hive13 exists, not one where it folded
because we didn't know how to ask for money. People want these places
to exist, and unless we tell them we are in need of money, they won't
know, and probably won't give it. Whether that means hustling our
(free) videos to try to gain recognition or only providing them with
membership, I lean toward promoting them as widely as possible, but
expecting a donation to watch them. I think we are doing a disservice
to the community to not communicate our financial needs.
On a personal note, I am for releasing the videos after a period of
time (a year?). My beef with copyright is it lasts too long, not that
it exists in the first place.
