The kid was the western suburbs of Pittsburgh, strolling up to the Red Hat booth on day two of LinuxCon North America with his dad in tow. 17 and a senior at West Allegheny High School in Imperial, PA, this young man had an interest in studying computer science and had come to LinuxCon with his father to get the lay of the land.
At this point, you might think the story would be about how we walked this young man through all of the different education options Red Hat participates in, including our University Outreach and Red Hat internship programs, and he left with a glowing confidence about the open source future before him. And indeed, that is pretty much part of what went down: my colleague Tom Callaway spoke at length with this student about those very topics. But while Tom was shaping future minds, I also had an interesting discussion of my own with the boy's father.
I spoke to several students at the booth over the course of the week--more women than men, I was pleased to observe--and while they all do represent the future of open source, that designation was not just limited to them. Anyone can come into open source and free software development and find their passion there.
The dad, interestingly enough, worked for a major IT consulting firm, so he was clearly no slouch in tech side of things. But what the father was not so clear about was the revenue stream for open source businesses.
It may seem kind of a slam-dunk for those of us in the biz, but the truth is there are still a lot of people in the world who don't understand how free and open source software works. Or, at least, some aspect of it. They may understand, for example, the benefits of open source collaboration (the old "many eyes make shallow bugs" chestnut), but not grok the difference between open source revenue models versus open core/freemium models.
I was happy to share knowledge with our visitor and there is now one more person in the world who understands how companies like Red Hat, SUSE, and Canonical can make a living.
More importantly, it dawned on me that we, as members of our various communities, still have a ways to go to enlighten and educate people about open source. That which seems obvious to us is really not, and we can't make the presumption that even if someone is at an event like LinuxCon (or OSCON or SCALE), they may not feel like they understand all they need.
Working with the younger generation is amazing and rewarding, but the same benefits can be reaped when we show any generation the joys of open source.
저자 소개
Brian Proffitt is Senior Manager, Community Outreach within Red Hat's Open Source Program Office, focusing on enablement, community metrics and foundation and trade organization relationships. Brian's experience with community management includes knowledge of community onboarding, community health and business alignment. Prior to joining Red Hat in 2013, he was a technology journalist with a focus on Linux and open source, and the author of 22 consumer technology books.
채널별 검색
오토메이션
기술, 팀, 인프라를 위한 IT 자동화 최신 동향
인공지능
고객이 어디서나 AI 워크로드를 실행할 수 있도록 지원하는 플랫폼 업데이트
오픈 하이브리드 클라우드
하이브리드 클라우드로 더욱 유연한 미래를 구축하는 방법을 알아보세요
보안
환경과 기술 전반에 걸쳐 리스크를 감소하는 방법에 대한 최신 정보
엣지 컴퓨팅
엣지에서의 운영을 단순화하는 플랫폼 업데이트
인프라
세계적으로 인정받은 기업용 Linux 플랫폼에 대한 최신 정보
애플리케이션
복잡한 애플리케이션에 대한 솔루션 더 보기
오리지널 쇼
엔터프라이즈 기술 분야의 제작자와 리더가 전하는 흥미로운 스토리
제품
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux
- Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise
- Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
- 클라우드 서비스
- 모든 제품 보기
툴
체험, 구매 & 영업
커뮤니케이션
Red Hat 소개
Red Hat은 Linux, 클라우드, 컨테이너, 쿠버네티스 등을 포함한 글로벌 엔터프라이즈 오픈소스 솔루션 공급업체입니다. Red Hat은 코어 데이터센터에서 네트워크 엣지에 이르기까지 다양한 플랫폼과 환경에서 기업의 업무 편의성을 높여 주는 강화된 기능의 솔루션을 제공합니다.