#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 humbe 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 the 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 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.
###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.
###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 evntually change the world.
###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.
