I don’t really know what to type in here tonight.
I’ve been busy for the past few days. On top of everything that’s going on, family-wise, I’ve got a fair amount of backlog in the work stuff that I need to have done that I feel that I’ve been totally neglecting.
Speaking of coming up Blank, Guy Martin asked a question on twitter last night: Open Source-type followers – Why does talk of Open Source seem to center on ‘free code’, not the dev methodologies used to produce it?
Guy’s question is an interesting one — and does accurately reflect what I’ve experienced with the open source community. I’ve been a semi-active member of the open source community since 1996, when I was introduced into the wide world of GNU and the FSF. Since then, I’ve spent a fair amount of time working on various open-source projects, including talkers, accounting software, and various other tidbits that I’ve messed around with. In just about every development project that’s out there, you don’t just start coding and commit your changes into the development branch. You start by submitting patches, getting validated and vetted, and then, you are explicit into what you’re working on, what you’re developing against, and when you can commit your changes into the branch that you’re working on. On just about every project that I’ve worked on, it has commonly been the well accepted means of developing software.
Speaking as a developer (in the lightest of terms), since I’m getting into this developing for the masses in general, I want ‘masses’ to be able to enjoy the work that I’ve spent my time on, and want them to experience the benefits of free software. I also want them to understand why having free/libre software is important, and hope that they become interested in the aspects of it.
So many folks think that Free Software is the ‘gateway drug’ to commercial software. However, I think that it’s quite different — commercial software pushes folks to free software, and the free software ecosystem shows them that free software can be a better alternative to commercial software, however, what’s right for me, might not be right for them — and they can pay the developer, or company, to make modifications, either to trunk, or for their situation, in order to balance the scales. This way, the folks who are knowledgeable about the software can continue to earn a living doing what they love, and the needs of the company are filled.
I’m not saying that it’s impossible for Free Software companies to make money — Red Hat has shown us that it is possible to give your software away for free (ala Fedora), Make Money on the commercial side (Professional Services, and RHEL), and be a good member of the open source community.
Open Source developers enjoy the ‘tried and trusted’ method of developing software because it works for them. While some projects may have a desire to be agile, in most circles, the stable distros will find a release and stick with it for the life of that version, however, development will drive on, new features will be implemented (whether it’s by a company or an individual), and the ‘free software’ ecosystem will continue to live on until development stops, or, something else happens.
Watching the lines of people wrap around the funeral home to say their last respects enlightened me to the power of the work family.
When you have a former plant manager, who drives from Iowa, to say goodbye to one of their former employees, it tells me a lot about the person, as well as the manager, and the strength of the union “family.” It also reminded me of a time that when you worked, you were considered a family, instead of being ‘human capital.’
I ordered two yubikeys tonight. My first project is to write a simple plugin to log into django’s admin interface using my yubikey.
We’ll see how far I get once I get my key.
Do you want my other yubikey? ($25 Value!) Give me a good reason why I should give you a yubikey, or pitch me a yubikey plugin, and I’ll mail it out to you when I get mine.
