#What Open Source Means To Me
An experiment to see if we can get a bunch of people to send pull requests about what open source means to them. See CONTRIBUTING for the expected format.
###Nick Desaulniers Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants, allowing humanity to accelerate the pace of technological achievement collectively, instead of wasting time starting from square one repeatedly. Open source allows us to examine, learn from, and understand how the software we use everyday works, and how we can write better software ourselves. Open source allows us to create a community around users and contributors. The opportunity of contribution is allowed from any and all instead of exclusive rings of those employed by any one organization.
Open source means that I have a computer with amazing software on it that's available for free. I do almost all my work using Linux, Python, Ruby, Perl, GNU tools. It means we have Wikipedia. I literally can't imagine a world without open source software.
I also think about my experiences contributing to open source software, which have been alternately amazing and super stressful. I've spent time in IRC channels where people answer my questions within minutes and take me seriously, and in channels where I've been mocked for not knowing things.
I think of open source communities as places that are useful and productive and supportive also as places where people can be rude and exclusionary and awful. Building good communities isn't easy work, and open source isn't magical. We can do so well and so badly.
###Pablo Terradillos El Open Source es importante para mí, porque me permite abrirme a un mundo mucho más amplio. Aprender de los gigantes, poniendome a la par de los mismos en forma de pequeñas contribuciones. El Open Source significa poner el avance primero. Permitiendo que cualquier persona pueda contribuir, en vez de competir. El Open Source permite crear comunidades, lazos, permite que un completo desconocido ayude a otro. Que la necesidad de uno, se convierta en el beneficio de todos.
Open source means, at the end of the day, sharing. Sharing our knowledge, experiences and learning but also being open and humble for contributions, other perspectives and ideas. The essence of how mankind should work together to create something better and more inclusive while being transparent with our work.
###Gervase Markham Open source is important because it's part of what we need to make sure that as more and more people across the world come online, they can do so while being in control of their own technology, and without having to pay gatekeepers.
God has a project to bless and transform the world through the work of his people, until the earth is filled with his glory. Open source is important to me because it's one of the ways I can contribute to that project, using the particular skills He has given me.
###Angel "Java" Lopez Open source is important because software is changing human history. And open source is a key part of that process. A lot of human activity was leveraged by software applications. Even the Internet and the web are in part software.
And open source is important to me because it is a way to learn, to practice, and to share with others. The way of doing software is now: open source it. The way to learn programming is: read OS code, write OS code, collaborate with other OS project.
This way of doing programming is changing the metrics of the planet. Now, you and me can be connected, working together, both living thousands of miles. The power is in your brain and fingers. Social position, previous education, welfare, does not matter. The power returns to the people.
###Austin King Open source gave me insight into our modern world and a way to participate as a productive member. Until the Web, Linux, Perl and XML I have no interest in computers. I was a visual artist and interested in creating things and doing conceptual art.
Being exposed to the web was exciting, but the addictive part came from it's open nature. I was able to see how the web was built. I could see that it wasn't "finished".
Getting started, I never would have tinkered with an opaque blob like the iPhone. I could add to it, without anyone's permission.
This appealed to my creative and intellectual sides. As a coincidence, I discovered that companies would pay for this line of work. Open Source literally changed my life and gave me a reason to participate in mainstream society.
###Anant Narayanan Open source to me is not only the ability to use high quality software, but also the ability to peek inside and truly understand how it works. Software is eating the world, they say, so to me it is critical that the art of creating software be as accessible as possible.
Before I learned of open source software, every thing on my computer was a black box. I had no insight into how it was built or how it worked. It was incredibly limiting, which is why the sense of freedom that comes with using, contributing and writing open source software has few parallels.
###Luca Greco OpenSource significa "questa non è una scatola nera", ed ho il diritto/dovere di studiare, modificare e contribuire alle tecnologie che scelgo.
Quando scelgo una tecnologia FLOSS, non scelgo solo le sue funzionalità, ma anche la sua base di codice e la sua community, la sua cultura e le sue "best practices", e quindi da buon cittadino, cerco di "dare e condividere" almeno quanto "prendo ed apprendo".
###Tim Cameron Ryan Computers are tools for creation. Their versatility magnifies our capacity to work, think, and access information. It's been the collective aspirations of generations of engineers, thinkers, and innovators who brought us here. And Open Source is the celebration of and participation in that collaboration.
It's a two way street. Everything framing my interest in computers from my childhood until today has been made better by sharing ideas and the serendipity that comes from that, from sharing webcomics in middle school to writing open source tools today. For the longest time I felt I didn't have much to contribute—now, instead of noticing flaws in software, I notice what I can do to get involved. And whenever software I've help write reaches other people, I feel I've paid back in a small way my fortune in being involved during such an incredible time in technology.
Every patch counts! Including this pull request.
###Alon Zakai Open source is important because it is the best way to ensure that software is available to benefit everyone in as wide a way as possible: Anyone with a computer can access and modify open source software, and it can't be locked down or restricted. And since software is 'just' information - and information is extremely cheap to transmit - this is not just a theoretical position but a practical one. In fact open source is the natural state of things for software: it takes intention and effort to make software not open.
###Justin Clift Open source means making things easier for the next person, who is trying to solve the same problem I just had.
Sometimes that next person goes further, solving new problems, sharing their solution as well.
With time and constructive encouragement, this can become a Community of problem solvers and doers to positively change the world. 😃
###Soumith Chintala Open source, to me, is an amazing culture that is so antithetic to mainstream society, yet I'm surprised at how it evolves so peacefully but strongly. The sense and strength of community is so powerful, that I couldn't have been happier to be a part of this movement, amazed and humbled by the craziest ideas and work that get shared. In simple words, it changed my life.
###Rich Bowen Open Source means that I get to be a small part of solving problems for thousands, or potentially millions, of people that I will never meet. I get to make the world a better place. I feel a great deal of satisfaction every time I see someone using something that I helped make.
If each line of code or documentation that I improve helps one person do their job a little better, or get home to their family a few minutes earlier, then it was worth the effort. And, in turn, the work that others have done make my life better and more productive, too.
###Daniel Fahlke aka Flyingmana Open source is important to me because it enables me to give something back to the world and help others to create value. It's about working together, helping each other and making everyone's life easier.
###Randall Leeds Open Source means to me that access to literacy is a right rather than a privilege and that even if I choose to sell my labor I never forfeit my right to share the resulting abundance.
###Adam Lofting Open Source, to me, means using our combined energy to iterate on, rather than replicate, the work of those before us; and enabling those who follow us to do the same.
###Doug Belshaw Open source to me has moved from a 'nice to have' (1997 when I first downloaded Red Hat Linux) to something that's essential for trust, transparency, and solidarity (2013/14 post-Snowden era). Like the pull request that created this contribution, I want to be able to collaborate, give feedback and discuss the tools that I use in a meaningful way.
As an educator and parent, however, I want to go a step further. Open Source may be a technological method of production, but it's also a wider approach to life. I believe in human flourishing and the Open Source way - with its focus on participation and different notions of 'ownership' really resonate with me.
###Jeff Poyzner To me open source means not hiding how you made something so that anyone else can see it, use it, redo it, remake it, live with it, pass it on...as a blogger and book writer I create things so that others can use them. My goal is to change the world, and if you create something powerful enough, it doesn't matter what human channels it goes through...it will eventually change the world.
###William Duyck Open source is important. Human collaboration across an open platform is essential to individual growth and our collective future. That platform is not just a technical implementation of something, but more an ethos, a way of working together. The open web is the communication tool, open source is the way of working together, and when combined we can play to each other's strengths to better ourselves and others quicker, more effectively, and with higher value.
Open source is not just a licensing agreement, or the ability to look at the code. Its understanding the balance of public vs private. Its the ability to work with others, no matter who they are, where they're from, or what they believe. Open source is a way of life.
###Jim Cresswell
Learning and creating in new, better ways.
###Vlad Filippov To me the key idea of open source is to be able to remix, improve and extend existing solutions. Open source also helps us not repeat the same mistakes and learn from years of experience of others. In particular, open source software helps us become better programmers and leave our mark for future generations of software developers.
###Christian Heilmann Open Source means to me that you share your creation with the world. You don't just give it out to look at it, you allow people to participate and change the project according to suggestions (after a peer review). You build it with the people and for the people. That way open source is not only about technology - it is about collaboration and sharing responsibilities. It means that your product will go on when you are not part of it any more and others can build on what you did. It protects you from burning out on one product and allows others to start with something that already works.
###Lukas Blakk To me Open Source is a tool in the activist toolbox. It's how we can get things done without having to wait and ask permission, without having to build every. single. thing. we want before we can accomplish great things. We build on each other's work, we build up each other's work together. The fact that I could "view source" on web pages in the earlier days of the web was how I taught myself to make my own web pages. Multiply that out times every thing we do with technology in our lives. Wherever there is a black box, where a corporate power whose only interest is to continue to funnel money into the pockets of the 1%, we will open it up. We (the open source hackers) will reverse engineer, offer alternatives, show it can be done collectively for greater good than any capitalist enterprise. Look around you - open source is running so many of the things we take for granted. It's literally for everyone and we'll keep getting more and more people rallying to it, learning it & building it, so that there's always a non-silo option and transparency into the increasingly present technology in our lives.
###Diane Tate Open Source is a collective ownership of code, process and values to create something bigger and more universally-valuable than a centrally-controlled, commercially-prioritized entity can do. It's shared creation and participation as well as consumption.
###Tim Chevalier To me, open source means that different people can come together to make things, share knowledge, and help each other in a way that isn't driven by capitalism. Just as you might give your friend a ride to the airport, babysit their child, or even just sit with them and listen to them talk about their problems for no monetary reward, contributing to open source is not a simple economic transaction. It's true that most people get back more than they give, but what makes contributing to an open-source project worthwhile is something other than immediate financial gain. Often, it's just the knowledge that you are part of something bigger than yourself.
As it is, not everybody has equal access to the opportunity to participate in open source. Setting aside massive inequality in who can learn how to write software in the first place, participating in open source requires not just technical expertise, but willingness to tolerate an extremely male-dominated culture and everything that comes with that. Male domination in open source isn't an accident: many people who participate feel more comfortable being in a closed club with other people like themselves. It's essential to the survival to all that we've built in the open-source world that men learn how to empathize and understand experiences that aren't their own. Otherwise, we'll address the needs of only a tiny sector of the population, and will fail at even that.
###Casey Becking Open source means to me - EVERYTHING!! I grew up with a computer and am self taught without open-source I wouldn't be where I am today. I learned everything by seeing what other developer/coders are doing. I started by Viewing Source and changing the code to work with I could. Without learning from someone else I would not be able to take a step back and now teach that to other people. I show them that giving the code back to community only makes the Internet that much better.
###Ian Connolly Open source means empowerment to me. It allows us to stand on the shoulders of the great people who've come before us, and build something that could genuinely improve the world. I see it to be a modern, practical equivalent to how knowledge spreads in academia. In academia, your research is one small step beyond the great research that has come before you, that you were able to read. That work allowed you to push research forward. In open source, we can freely use what has come before us and push technology forward. And it allows us to do so in a way that doesn't compromise our freedoms.
###Ken Andersen Open source to me means trust. I know I can trust the software because I can go through the code myself and verify the lack of NSA.
###Ryan Drake Open source means community to me. I love that open source software and services connects a community of people, potentially from around the world, beyond monetary means. Open source is about realising that we all benefit when we can give back and share with one another, and that each of our stories and gifts are all intertwined. We can live an abundant life through extravagant giving, and that can happen through the open source community.
###Lalatendu Mohanty Open source means freedom, sharing knowledge and a group of people i.e. community coming together to solve a common problem. I think the world will be better with free and open source software. Open source communities are excellent examples of how a bunch of people can make a positive difference to the world.
###Maksym Sditanov Open source - это модель открытого взаимодействия людей. Основой взаимодействия является открытость и взаимоуважение, помощь участников. В основном OpenSource используется среди разработчиков программного обеспечения. При разработке ПО исходные коды программы и все нужные средства для сборки программы выкладываются в свободный доступ в сети. Любой человек может посмотреть, как программа устроена, исправить ошибки или добавить новую функциональность. Таким образом люди легко передают идеи, реализацию, улучшения и исправления ПО. OpenSource - это круто
###Arvid Warnecke
Open Source bedeuted für mich Freiheit und Unabhängigkeit. Durch Open Source ist es möglich viel verschiedene Software nutzen zu können, so dass man nicht von einer einzigen Software abhängig ist. Außerdem ist es möglich bestehende Software um Funktionen zu erweitern und diese wiederum anderen zugänglich zu machen. Dadurch kann umfangreiche und großartige Software entstehen.
Außerdem ist es möglich bereits vorhandenen Code zu studieren und daraus für eigene Projekte zu lernen. Open Source ist das Beste was Software passieren kann.