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Chicago
I'm a lover of the magic of open source and open concepts. I'm forever in awe of the millions of people around the world who combine brilliance and vision to produce some of the most important infrastructure we have today. From coders to project managers, documentors to fundraisers, translators to designers, the world of open source is one of idealism, action and progress. I'm thrilled to be following along in the footsteps of such extraordinary humans, and I hope someday to rise to the high standard that the community has set for the Open Source Way!
Authored Comments
Very true, and I realize now that I wasn't clear in this article that I do believe the movement exists and I do believe *in* the movement, I just don't think you have to subscribe to the movement to benefit. See my answer to @Lightweight below.
Regarding the Journey, I totally hear you on that one :). I spent 3 years hitch hiking around Latin America in my early 20's and in the process fully internalized what people meant when they said stuff like that.
I think it's the love of the journey that causes us to innovate. If we just wanted a product, we'd hack what's available into working. But in our exploration of the ideal -- our journey through the conceptual space of the various movements in which we all take part, and even the intersections of those movements -- we uncover thrilling structures and features that we never would have found if we had B-lined it to a workable solution. (I'm doing this now as I meander around the world of object-oriented PHP building yet another web applications framework that the world most certainly doesn't need.)
What I had hoped to emphasize with this article is that it's important to recognize what's actually powerful and what's just fun. "Open" to me is fun. But what it *does* is create better collaboration, and *that's* powerful. It's these aspects of open that have immediate use-cases in the dry and unphilosophical daily world of a small business owner wondering what all the buzz around Open is about. (Which is not to say that all small business owners live in dry and unphilosophical worlds! ;) )
Hey all,
Please remember to cast your votes on alternativeto.net, too. Alternativeto.net is an important resource for -- you guessed it -- alternatives, and while these opensource.com polls can be fun, they don't contribute to the very important solution that alternativeto.net offers.
Kael