Hacking4Life :P

     I do not know if he means to be, but Linus is a funny guy, it has been a long time since I have laughed out loud while reading a book. I related a lot to his fear of speaking, I feel like I have tried all the tricks to get over it, but it never works. I am not sure he truly gets over it, but I think he does a good job regulating it, at least for a free trip somewhere. Another cool development although he did not speak much about it, was his family life. He said, “Being a father seemed like the most natural thing in the world”. Before, I did not picture him as a family guy simply because I did not picture him as a people person, it did not seem like that was of utmost importance to him. It is funny the way things work though because Tove found him, they married and had three kids. Regardless of work or Linux, he seemed to care for them and be present in their lives.       Linus seemed like a simple man, in that he did not ask for much and in return...

     Linus Torvalds' upbringing was definitely surprising to me, it really seemed all over the place. In my opinion, it did not seem like an ideal situation. His early life consisted of death, separation, solitude, and more that was around him yet he was simply unphased. It seems like he unconsciously chose what to remember from his childhood (whatever was interesting) and what not to remember (the boring stuff). Initially, I thought it would be impossible for me to relate to him, but I have more similarities than I thought. I definitely am shy (as if I haven't said that before), in fact, my mom thought something was wrong with me as a baby because I was late to babbling sounds/letters. Like Linus, my grandfather also had a big impact on my life. Although it was through learning math, it was still an experience that helped me actually learn and not solely complete an assignment. I am also pretty stubborn, which I feel more than often can be a positive trait. When he talke...

     I was raised with the phrase “Every penny counts”, which led me to understand that the small things can add up. When talking about services instead of software I thought of a car. It is not a one-time investment, although you do pay a lot upfront, there are other costs such as insurance, gas, tune-ups, etc. I was taught how to change a headlight, tire, and oil change, which is crazy cheap compared to the labor costs and other associated fees with those services. Although it is different than the software industry, I brought this up to show that you can definitely make money providing a service especially if it is recurring. The idea of use value vs sale value is important and relates directly to the open source service vs software discussion. Both the service and use value cases are reoccurring events that encourage community development and self-sustaining features as discussed in the examples of Apache and Cisco. In the example, they could reach more people and eve...

I think what is so appealing about open source to others is the reputation component. It sounds bad to say, but everyone loves a little ego boost. In the reading, they briefly explained how gift culture can be found in the wealthy community which makes sense because it is a community where people may have enough materialistically such that your reputation is the next best thing to build, gain, and improve upon. To reference the ideas from hackers and painters, another appeal of open source is simply sharing your work for the sake of sharing it, looking for feedback, or simply having fun. Hackers like painters, can choose whether to share their art with the world or keep it to themselves. Art can be recreated yet it is not something they fear because, with each recreation, there is always something different or some aspect that appeals to different people. For example, using different mediums and or angles for the same art subject, or different variations of Photoshop like GIMP or Krita...