#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.
###Andrew Elkins Open source is important to me because allows others to gain from past experiences. Allowing written code to be viewed and commented on gives others the option to expand and build upon what has already been created. It not only shortens development lifecycles, but furthers our collective knowledge.