Community is a deeply personal experience. While write communities such as Open Source get together to make things (as opposed to read communities who consume content together), the attraction and thrill is only partially in the collaboration. What really makes write communities fun are the personal relationships that develop; what starts as nicknames on a screen shortly burst with life and become friends who we enjoy spending time with, sharing our ideas with, and in many cases relying on to help us through tough patches of our lives. The very reason Open Source and community attracted me in the first place is that this is not just boring, cold, and unfeeling computing, it is computing driven by people who share their humanity to make the world a better place.
I like that.
I like that a lot, and I think lots of you good people do too.
Over the years in my role as Ubuntu Community Manager I have seen the project grow from strength to strength. I am hugely proud of all of the efforts the community has made and the achievements that we can associate with the project. I really feel we are on target for breaking new ground for desktop Linux. While there are many desktop distributions, and many of them perform stunning work, the furthest many have got to mainstream success with users (aside from just Linux enthusiasts) has been getting close to the chasm…but not taking a run-up to get over it. I feel like we are teetering on the edge of the chasm with Ubuntu, and now we have the opportunity to thrust it over into the mainstream, and therefore thrust Free Software into the mainstream.
