

My Thanks to GNU/Linux and Free Software - voodoochilo

i am working with gnu/linux and therefore with free software since about 1996 and during this 16 years i miserably failed to express my feelings and thoughts about that fact properly. this will change now.<p>easy, easy! go on reading! i am not going to write pages over pages about my personal history with gnu/linux or some <i>awesome and funny</i> anecdotes about how i came to gnu/linux in the first place.<p>after so many years of performance, community and "it-simply-works" there's only one occupying thought in my mind left gaining more and more mental ground every day:<p>"what if gnu/linux or the idea it represents would have never existed?"<p>i think that the sheer amount of pure panic this simple question is able to produce in me is my kind of humbly saying: "thank you very much all you people! i owe you one...or two". (especially you, richard;)<p>thank you for giving me the possibility to own an operating system which had a 40,0000 dollar price tag on it 30 years ago and would have needed some kind of nasa-highend-rig to run it and to work with it today on my crappy dell notebook FOR FREE. Imagine that sh*t!<p>... and thank you for all the fun!
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dalke
"what if gnu/linux or the idea it represents would have never existed?"

Then we would most likely be using some BSD variant. Oh, wait .. I am!

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kaolinite
Can agree with all of this. I'm only 19 and have been programming
professionally for 2 years now (and as a hobby for 4-5 more). I know that
without free software, I wouldn't be where I am right now as I simply wouldn't
have had the tools available that I did as I was growing up and as I was
learning to program.

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rollypolly
I'd love to know which type of company is willing to hire someone so young. I
know someone around your age that's competent (for his age) but is finding it
difficult to find anyone to take him seriously.

I've suggested to him to build up his portfolio and github profile, but that
takes time.

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kaolinite
The firm I started at was tiny, just me and 2 other guys. I found a list of
website development companies in my local area and sent emails to all of them,
asking if they were taking anyone on. Only got a reply back from one of them,
went to the interview and completed their little test quickly so they took me
on. I was paid very little for my efforts, mind, but without that job I don't
think I would have gotten my current one (where I'm working alongside
university graduates for a decent salary).

I think something that definitely worked in my favour is that I brought along
my laptop and showed them a design of a website I had been working on.

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xzcallaway
I sure enjoy playing all the free games dotdeb.com offers for linux. Wish I
would have switched to it sooner.

