The first GSoC evaluations are up and I realized I hadn’t updated the blog since the last post. Instead of doing one of those technical posts that are (although interesting) very commonplace, I’ve decided on writing up something a bit more personal.
Open source means a lot to me. I’ve been using it since I was a teenager who had come across Ubuntu while roaming around the Internet, browsing ragefaces and other crap. I still remember installing Ubuntu 11.04 on a virtual machine first because I was scared I’d fuck up the only computer in the house. I remember when I first decided to learn Python, I was so surprised when I realized I didn’t have to download and install Python seperately on Ubuntu, it came with the OS!
A lot of time has passed since then, and I’ve graduated from writing small hello world programs to working on bigger projects and making computers solve weird problems. This journey of mine has only one constant really, open source software. My interests have been like a wave, moving to and fro, from functional programming to algorithms to data. In each of these interests, open source has been the constant shepherd, helping me go from total noob to a guy who kinda sorta knows what he’s doing. To all fellow programmers, I ask you to think about it, what would your life be like in a world where Linux or GCC or Python or bash didn’t exist. Thoughts like these always help me realize a responsibility to give back.
Open Source has made me get to know some really awesome people, from friends in the local GNU/Linux User’s Group to the awesome people in the MetaBrainz community. My life has been richer because of it. The culture of giving is one of my favorite things.
To be honest, I haven’t done as good a job of expressing this as I had hoped to do. This looks much more like random rambling. But the thought gets across, hopefully.
TL;DR: I <3 open source.