Talk submission: Software Freedom Kosova 2026

K. Mike Merrill · 1–3 October 2026, Prishtina

Title

The Cathedral and the Bizarre
I incorporated myself in 2008 and got pulled toward the bazaar

Note: “Bizarre” is spelled that way on purpose. Please don’t correct it to “Bazaar” in the program.

Description (146 words)

In 2000 my job title at LinuxFund was “Operations Penguin.” Eight years later I incorporated myself and sold shares in my own life, and my shareholders have voted on my decisions ever since, from what I work on to who I date.

I built my life on the cathedral model, the framework that best suited my community, and it came with rules, disclosure, and eventually a board. Eighteen years later I find myself pulled back toward the bazaar, with shareholders behaving like contributors and votes that work like pull requests (hopefully I don’t get forked).

This summer at FLOSSK I re-watched Revolution OS, a doc about the early days of open source, and started to think I chose wrong. Free software wrote licenses, took on audacious projects, and managed huge communities. What I’ve done has always been bizarre, and now I realize it’s also very bazaar.

One line, for social

I modeled my life on a publicly traded company and eighteen years later I have something closer to an open source project. I should have recognized the idea was too bizarre to be a cathedral.

Bio (103 words)

K. Mike Merrill is the world’s first publicly traded person. He IPO’d himself in 2008 and sold shares in his own life, and his shareholders have voted on his decisions ever since, from what he works on to who he dates. He got into technology in Portland, Oregon, at Tripwire, Tranxition, and LinuxFund, where his job title was Operations Penguin. He has spoken at TEDxVienna, ideacity, and XOXO, and his work has been covered by WIRED, VICE, and Variety. He spent this summer in Prishtina and now runs most of his life through a fleet of AI agents and too many GitHub issues.

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Photo

Download full size (JPEG, 5760 × 3840, 11 MB). Photo by Padraic O’Meara.