Bye-bye Apple, Auf Wiedersehen Häagen-Dazs:
Filmmaker to attempt year of Open Source Everything.
4th July 2012, Berlin, Germany
On August 1st, Berlin-based filmmaker Sam Muirhead is abandoning all copyrighted products and switching to Open Source
software, hardware, and services for one year, as the subject of his own series of online documentary videos.
Sam Muirhead aims to raise awareness of open source projects and methods, and get people from outside the tech world
interested and involved in Open Source.
“As someone without a background in high-tech, I want to show people that Open Source is not just for hackers – it is an
idea that can be adapted to any aspect of life.”
The internet has changed the film world immensely, and created new means of funding, production and distribution.
Utilising these new methods, Muirhead is exploring another big idea from the internet, Open Source, and its growing
effect on the ‘real’ world.
Open Source originated in the world of software, with the Firefox web browser, Linux operating system, and much of the
underlying structure of the Internet itself being collaboratively developed and released under Open Source licenses. But
Muirhead is interested in the philosophy of Open Source – as an alternative to copyright, it gives access to the plans
and design used to make a product. This means users can adapt the product to their own personal needs or redistribute
it. The idea has already spread from software to other areas, from Wikipedia to robotics to tractor design.
Technology’s rapid pace of development means a traditional long-form film about Open Source is impossible – by the time
it is edited, it will be out of date.
Muirhead will be taking the software development approach of ‘release early, release often’ to documentary making. With
new videos and projects to be released every week, the result will be an evolving portrait of Open Source, and will
enable the community to get involved in the project as it progresses.
The project is funded by and made for the online community, with an active campaign on crowdfunding website IndieGoGo
hoping to raise $20000 in donations in just 37 days.
Muirhead will make his own Open Source shoes, jeans, toothbrush and furniture (and release the designs for others).
He’ll be using Open Source educational methods to learn Turkish, avoiding food grown from copyrighted seed strains, and
abandoning Apple software.
He says the idea is also to have fun with the project – some of the more difficult areas in which to ‘go Open Source’
may lead to somewhat ridiculous results… DIY dentistry, for example, or Open Source contraception.
When asked what he hoped to achieve by only using Open Source solutions for everything in his life, Muirhead stated,
“Open source is a fascinating way of collaborating, of creating, and working together for common goals, but it’s seen by
most as something only relevant to software. By bringing it into ‘real life’ and adapting it to everyday purposes, I
hope to get people thinking about how Open Source could work in their lives.”
Muirhead suggests there’s a journalistic approach too: “I want to highlight the problems of the current copyright and
patent system. Every week you see Apple, Samsung and Google throwing million-dollar lawsuits at each other, when
technologically they all have shared goals. Whereas in the Open Source community there’s the adage that competitors stand on each others’ shoulders, not on each others’ toes.” The project will be highlighting the achievements and methods of companies and individuals working with Open Source,
and discussing their different business models.
As well as running workshops to develop Open Source solutions, Muirhead will also be speaking on the Open Source & Free Software stage at the 10000-strong Campus Party tech conference in Berlin in August.
Readers can learn more, donate and spread the word on the Year of Open Source pitch page here:
Sam Muirhead is a music video director, editor and documentary maker from Auckland, New Zealand, with a background in
web-based, festival and broadcast media.