On Saturday and Sunday I’m going to be at the FSF Meeting in Cambridge MA where I’m going to talk about The Free and Open Cloud.

Of course I’m not talking about Free-as-in-Beer here, but instead software freedom, and how the cloud is a new battleground for Free and Open Source software — something that matters a lot to me.

Most of my life I’ve benefited from Free Software. I wouldn’t have been able to acquire the knowledge, or do the jobs, and therefore, even earn what little money I have if it hadn’t been for free software.

It matters a lot.

When Joyent first approached Bryan and I at Reasonably Smart with the opportunity to join them one of my first concerns was “What does this mean for the idea that the platform software should be free?” I wouldn’t be posting on the Joyeur blog today, if the answer to that had been anything less than it was, and so when the opportunity to talk about free software and the cloud passed by my desk late last week, I jumped at the opportunity – not only because of what I feel about free software, but also how Joyent approaches free software.

For those of you not able to be there, I’ll be posting the talk here early next week – I’d post it sooner, but I’m polishing, polishing, polishing, and with a lot work and a little luck, it’ll be alright on the night.