Seldom without a computer of some sort since graduating from the University of British Columbia in 1978, I have been a full-time Linux user since 2005, a full-time Solaris and SunOS user from 1986 through 2005, and UNIX System V user before that.
On the technical side of things, I have spent a great deal of my career as a consultant, doing data analysis and visualization; especially spatial data analysis. I have a substantial amount of related programming experience, using C, awk, Java, Python, PostgreSQL, PostGIS and lately Groovy. I'm looking at Julia with great interest. I have also built a few desktop and web-based applications, primarily in Java and lately in Grails with lots of JavaScript on the front end and PostgreSQL as my database of choice.
Aside from that, I spend a considerable amount of time writing proposals, technical reports and - of course - stuff on https://www.opensource.com.
Authored Comments
Interesting article, Chad. Three things that occur to me reading it and the comments above.
The first is that even free riders offer value. An open source project that has three users that don't contribute directly to the tool vs. an open source tool that has 300,000 users that don't contribute directly are not in any way cut from the same cloth, if only because it's very difficult to imagine an open source project with 300,000 users and only one contributor.
The second is the amount of effort and knowledge that is required to contribute to an open source project can require the project's originator to spend a lot more time making the project truly open to contribution and not just to use. I imagine most of us know of open source projects out there that are, if not contributor-hostile, at least contributor-indifferent. I imagine most of us have decided to switch to open source solution B when the alternative was contributing to open source solution A to make it better, whether because A was contributor-indifferent or whether the learning curve just seemed too monumental given the expected benefit to be achieved by contributing.
The third is how much contribution is enough? If I hit the "Donate 10€" button, is that enough? Should the project owner accept that I'm contributing in a meaningful and direct way after that point? What if I contribute one patch? or one "good idea"? And since I have contributed in my mind, what sort of recognition should I expect?
Thanks for the great article, Nicole. Also a great reminder of some fine presentations at this year's conference.
The open source principle I find most interesting, perhaps even provocative, is "No discrimination against persons or groups". I should say that I am 100% behind such a concept, but I wonder how it might be interpreted in practice.
For example, I personally believe that public spaces that do not accommodate wheelchairs discriminate against people who rely on wheelchairs, scooters and other means of assisted movement.
Following that concept, when I consider releasing software as open source, must I address its use by people with visual or auditory impairments?