About

Hi! Welcome to Moving to Freedom dot org. My name is Scott Carpenter.

I like "about" pages. When I visit some random page on the Web I often wonder about the people behind the site and what they're up to. And it's nice when they provide a link to a page about the site and themselves. I hope my "about" page satisfies some of your own curiosity.

about this site

I started this blog to write about free software, free culture, and "assorted miscellany." I wanted to write about the process of moving from Microsoft Windows and other proprietary software to the GNU/Linux operating system and free software applications. I figured writing about it in public would provide additional motivation to finally make the move, and... look! I'm on the other side now. Mostly. I've made a few compromises, but I'm mostly using free software for my day to day personal computing. (Work is another story.) You can read the Move Notes for more on the moving process.

Now what? I still care a lot about free software and free culture and expect I'll keep writing about these topics. And I want to write about other stuff, to be determined. The future is difficult to predict. One thing I've been working on is some "web" fiction. More on that later.

some history

I became aware of free software in the form of GNU and Linux in 1998, and while I was immediately attracted to the idea of free software, I wasn't able to get traction using and moving to a free operating system. I was comfortable using Microsoft Windows. I had a lot of applications and data entrenched in Windows, and all my expertise lay there. It was frustrating not knowing how to do things in GNU/Linux, and I didn't want to invest the time in learning a whole new system.

But I kept coming back to it. I had started reading Slashdot in early 1999 -- followed soon by other free software related sites -- and wanted more and more to enjoy software freedom and be part of a community that believes in sharing and cooperation. In late 2005 or early 2006, I read Richard Stallman's book Free Software, Free Society, and felt inspired to try again and to start promoting free software to others. (I had previously read many of the collected essays, but reading the book provided a concentrated dose of inspiration and motivation.)

I started movingtofreedom.org in July 2006, and by February 2008, finally, I had completed the move. (Mostly!)

a few more things about me

I live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area in Minnesota. (One of the United States.) Minnesota is a beautiful state, with many lakes, forests, parks, and trails.

I'm married and have a daughter. We have pets. (Here's one. And another.) I've mostly kept my family out of these pages. Sometimes I'd like to write more about my personal life, but more often I decide to keep that separate and reasonably private.

I'd like to say I'm a runner. I ran for about a year and I loved it. I loved waking up before dawn for a 10 mile run. It was so rewarding. But I'm not doing it right now.

a few things I like

music: Martin Sexton, Ryan Montbleau Band, Rush, Jazz

television: Lost, Mad Men, Entourage, The Daily Show, Flight of the Conchords, Family Guy, Phineas & Ferb

movies: Haiku Tunnel, Ratatouille (and all Pixar movies), Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Groundhog Day

books: Richard Bach (Illusions), Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird), Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon, Baroque Cycle, etcetera), Brenda Ueland (If You Want To Write), Marcus Aurelius (Meditations), Ralph Waldo Emerson (Essays, etcetera), Norman Maclean (A River Runs Through It)