Open Advice/Foreword

Foreword

by Georg Greve

in: Open Advice

This text is available under the CC-BY-SA license. (see also: Open Advice/Info)

Contents 1 info about the author 2 notes

This is a book about community and technology. It is a book that represents a collective effort, much like the technology we build together. And if this is in fact your first encounter with our community, you may find it strange to think of a community as the driving force behind technology. Isn’t technology built by large corporations? Actually, for us it is almost the other way around.

The authors in this book are all members of what you could label the software freedom community. A group of people sharing the fundamental experience that software is more empowering, more useful, more flexible, more controllable, more just, more encompassing, more sustainable, more efficient, more secure and ultimately just better when it comes with four fundamental freedoms: to use, study, share and improve the software.

And while there is now an increasing number of communities that have left behind the requirement for geographical proximity by means of virtual communication, it was this community that pioneered that new age.

In fact, the Internet and the Free Software Community^[1] were co-dependent developments. As the Internet grew, our community could grow with it, but without the values and technology of our community, I have no doubts that the Internet would not have become the all-encompassing network that we now see enabling people and groups around the world.

Until today, our software runs most of the Internet, and you will know at least some of it, such as Mozilla Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Linux, and perhaps even GNOME or KDE. But our technology may also be hidden inside your TV, your wireless router, your ATM, even your radio, security system or battleships. It is literally everywhere.

It was essential in enabling some of the large corporations that you know, such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and others. None of these could have achieved so much in such a short time if it were not for the power of software freedom that allowed them to stand on the shoulders of those who came before.

But there are many smaller companies that live from, with, and for Free Software, including my own, Kolab Systems. Active partaking in the community in good faith and standing has become a critical success factor for all of us. And this is true even for the large ones, as Oracle has involuntarily demonstrated during and after its takeover of Sun Microsystems.

But it is important to understand that our community is not anti-commercial. We enjoy our work, and many of us have made it their profession for their livelihood and mortgage. So when we say community, we mean students, entrepreneurs, developers, artists, documentation writers, teachers, tinkerers, businessmen, sales people, volunteers and users.

Yes, users. Even if you did not realize it or “never signed up for no community,” you in fact are already almost part of ours. The question is whether you’ll choose to participate actively.

And this is what sets us apart from the monoculture behemoths, the gated communities, the corporate owned walled gardens of companies like Apple, Microsoft and others. Our doors are open. So is our advice. And your potential. There is no limit as to what you can become – it purely depends on your personal choice as it has depended for each of us.

So if you are not yet part of our community, or simply curious, this book provides a good starting point. And if you are already an active participant, this book might provide you with insights into a few facets and perspectives that are new to you.

Because this book contains important grains of that implicit knowledge which we usually build and transfer inside our sub-communities that work on different technologies. This knowledge typically trickles down from experienced contributors to less experienced ones, which is why it seems very obvious and natural to those socialized in our community.

This knowledge and culture of how to shape collaboration allows us to build outstanding technology in small, distributed teams across language, country and cultural barriers around the world, outperforming much larger development teams in some of the world’s largest corporations.

All the people writing in this book are such experienced contributors in one, sometimes several areas. They have grown to become teachers and mentors. Over the course of the past 15 years or so I had the pleasure of getting to know most of them, working with many, and the privilege to call some of them friends.

Because as Kévin Ottens rightly said during the Desktop Summit 2011 in Berlin: “Community building is family and friendship building.”

So it is in fact with a profound sense of gratitude that I can say there is no other community I would rather be part of, and I look forward to hopefully seeing you at one or the other upcoming conference.

— Georg Greve

Zürich, Switzerland; 20. August 2011

info about the author

Georg Greve initiated the Free Software Foundation Europe in 2000 and was its founding president until 2009. During this time he was responsible for building up and designing many of FSFE’s activities such as the Fellowship, the policy or legal work, and has worked intensively with many communities. Today he continues this work as shareholder and CEO of Kolab Systems AG, a fully Free Software company. For his accomplishments in Free Software and Open Standards Georg Greve was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit (German: Bundesverdienstkreuz) on ribbon by the Federal Republic of Germany on 18 December 2009.

notes

1. ↑ For me, Open Source is one aspect of that community which articulated itself in 1998, so quite some time after the Internet came about. But please feel free to replace Free Software by Open Source in your head if that is your preferred terminology.