Why I love the open source community: all thanks to GNOME!
So I blogged about my favorite open source conference, OSCON, and about being pregnant, and I got a flood of email from people, several from my favorite open source community, GNOME. I get asked a lot how I got involved in open source and why I'm such a big fan. While the why I'm such a big fan has a long history in how I view software, technology and society, the how I got involved in open source and so quickly discovered what a great community it is is all due to the GNOME community.
I was managing the CDE desktop team at HP when I started investigating what the future of the desktop should be, turned to Linux and then to GNOME, met Nat Friedman and Miguel de Icaza, and ended up at … GUADEC! Checking into the hotel in Copenhagen I realized that the people checking in before me who had also been sitting behind me on the airplane were also there for GUADEC … so I ended up wandering around Copenhagen with the Red Hat GNOME folks, trying hard to keep each other awake to beat jetlag. The next day checking into the conference I was greeted with an enthusiastic – no, jubilant, "YOU'RE A GIRL!!!" Turns out I was the second female attendee to sign in and the first one had been debating on whether "Stormy" was a girl's name or a boy's name. I still tell that story often. (As a side note, GNOME is hosting a Women's Summer Outreach Program this summer to encourage more women to get involved with GNOME.) Everyone I met was very welcoming, very enthusiastic about GNOME, very committed to making it a great product … it couldn't have been a better experience.
And since then I've found the rest of the open source community to have the same ideals and commitment to open source. Some are more idealistic than others, some are more friendly than others, some are easier to understand than others … but it's a great group of people all dedicated to making software better for everyone. How could I not enjoy working with a group of people with such great goals and ideals that are committed to working together to make it happen?
