We live our modern, high-tech lives immersed in a sea of devices and systems powered at least in part by open source software. It's amazing how much of our lifestyle we owe to the generosity of geeks. I wonder how many non-technical folks appreciate that.
has_many :through
geek by association
About
I'm Josh Susser, and this is my geek blog. It's mainly about Ruby on Rails programming, but other stuff will creep in from time to time. I've been a professional programmer for over 20 years (with time off for good behavior). I also fancy myself something of a writer, thus the blog is a good outlet for two of the things that keep me from getting enough sleep.
I'm an organizer of the Golden Gate Ruby Conference (gogaruco), a regular panelist on the Ruby Rogues podcast, and do a lot of yoga when I'm not working on my startup.
josh (at) hasmanythrough (dot) com
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You're right. The cool thing about it is that it gives you the need to be a part of it and to make something great on your own and share it to the world.
It's some kind of virtuous circle, or something like that :)
Given the perceived impact that open knowledge sharing has had, I would say that all of humanities current era is owed to geek/computer-culture persons. I think non-technical people are intimidated by the level of affluence a small percentage of individuals have when it comes to our culture(and by comparison, those peoples inability to comprehend); this leads others to disregard the level of effort and energy put into their daily lives. In theory, the robot revolution will sort it all out.
Jon-Paul, I don't disagree. But my point was about open source contributions, which are done from generosity, not for pay. They are essentially gifts to humanity.
they don'y know nothing about open source
I think many don't realize how widespread it is, and don't appreciate it nearly enough. Hopefully that changes more over time as things like Android become mainstream, cheap laptops running linux, etc.
Not enough, Josh. The majority of non-technical folk need a slap round the face. They should appreciate that every open source project makes humanity increasingly immersed in, locked-in to, and dependent on technology (unequivocally a good thing) and, therefore, leads to them spending more of their lives staring in to a screen and more likely to inherit the behavior of the geeks themselves (widely accepted as the most outgoing, charismatic, and physically healthy of all the stereotypes). The World is a wonderful place, and life is there to be lived - so let's experience it all through a sea of devices.
I don't think it's generosity. We program because we love to program. Open source lets more people appreciate our work. We like it when people appreciate our work. I would guess that most open-source contributors make six figures. I think it's awesome that we can do so AND help the world.
No, I don't think it's at all correct to assume most open source contributors make six figures, but all do enjoy coding.
Original message heartily endorsed.
It's not just generosity, it's a better economic model for both the greater good and the interests of the contributors. Open-source contributions challenge common notions of self-interest.