Intro to Open Source

Sometime around 2011, I had my first real encounter with free and open source software (FOSS), both as a general concept, and with a specific application called MuseScore.

At the time, I was attending Berklee College of Music online, and for my orchestration program, I needed notation software.

I was absolutely blown away at how powerful MuseScore was for being totally free. Not to mention the fact that it was cross platform, and has a thriving community. The team has been actively working on it for years, and to this day, I use it for my notation.

That initial excitement and wonder at people willingly donating their time and expertise to make a tool that gives millions of people access to writing music was so inspiring.

Should I Code?

Around this same time, I also started getting what I would describe as a casual interest in programming. I would basically spend short bursts going through some resources for Java, or CLI’s, or C#, or JavaScript.

It was fun for a few days at a time, but my lack of a structured understanding of programming fundamentals always ensured that I became intimidated, and quickly hit the limits of my understanding…and I would retreat back into saying “I’m not smart enough to be a real developer.”

Even if I had dove in further, I was working with many different, very talented, game developers, and my focus at the time was being a composer. Seeing how skilled they were was a convenient excuse for me to give up any hope of ever being one.

Fast forward to 2016.

Blender

At this point, my creative net was widening from exclusively music. I was already an avid YouTuber, photographer and an experienced video editor. I had just finished some military training as a Broadcast Journalist, and I was wanting to begin doing some basic animations and 3D models.

That led me to Blender.

It’s incredible. It also has a steep learning curve, though they’re continually improving it.

I started diving into Blender, and had a blast…along with lots of frustration while learning. But it was that same sense of exhilaration that the humans developing these tools…for free…really represent something special.

It piqued my interest to the larger world of FOSS.

Linux

While my multiple hard drive crash story is for another time, it was the catalyst for me taking a serious look at Linux, which now seemed like a natural evolution.

My interest in FOSS was growing beyond just the fact that I got cool stuff for free. I also really admired the ethos of people freely putting their time, energy and effort into enabling people to do amazing things.

As I got my computer back up and running, I started going through distros and trying them: Ubuntu Studio, and Fedora Design Suite both made the short list.

I worked exclusively in Linux for about 2 months, the whole time trying to get my creative workflow up and running.

I loved the ethos, but didn’t love the amount of time that I was spending just trying to solve basic problems getting my hardware to work.

I still keep some Linux VM’s around, and I still may give it another go at some point in the future.

The Open Web

My intermittent but growing, casual interest in open source took a more serious turn over the last few years.

Two main factors have contributed to the shift:

1. Working as a front end web developer

2. Observing the catastrophic effects of disinformation over the last year

In the positive, it is hopefully obvious that I eventually overcame my self-doubt about my ability to learn programming. That said, I have benefited immensely from formal coursework that gives me a strong foundation.

On the not so good side, the naive wonder of the power of the internet has been overtaken by the bitter reality that humans are still humans.

The effects of surveillance capitalism, lack of robust data privacy laws, lack of intellectual property protections/licensing, and erosion of open source tools into proprietary versions should be very concerning to everyone, considering the world economy is largely operating on the web.

The glaring problems are also what sometimes make principled decisions difficult to make. Google collects obscene amounts of data, but Google apps are just excellent. I don’t have much good to say about Facebook as a service, and yet, it’s how I keep in touch with most of the people that I care about, and there is no service that’s really comparable. Twitter is fascinating for getting current conversations around all sorts of things, but it decidedly less about connecting with people. Instagram can be a fun time sink sometimes.

So I’ve had to acknowledge that a big, showy, sanctimonious purge of all the evils of “big tech” isn’t really a practical step. I begrudgingly acknowledge that they do offer a meaningful service, mixed in with the very negative abuses of power. And honestly, my opinion and position on this topic is constantly evolving as I learn more. This opinion may not be where I land.

For now, I’ve decided to start small. A serious, holistic move towards FOSS won’t be easy, and it won’t be overnight. It also doesn’t need to be a conversion to a different religion for it to be valid. I don’t mind doing it in phases, as it makes sense.

About 6 months ago, I switched cold turkey from Chrome to Firefox as a first step.

And you know what? It’s fine.

For 95% of my web experience, Firefox really does work great. There’s a few things here and there that bug me. But the people at Mozilla are fucking trying, and I’m supporting them for it. It’s even got some things that I like better than Chrome.

At the end of the day, I think they are good people, trying to make the web better, in ways that so called “big tech” has neglected.

Mozilla recently posted this, and this, and I think it’s a damn good step in the right direction.