When reproducing, using, or extracting this text, always reference the source and the author : Ignacio Rondini

So I finally came back

I’ve always loved open-source. Since the day I first discovered Ubuntu and asked for an installation CD, and that it arrived by the post (!), completely free (gratis), that I’ve been fascinated about it. It amazes me how we have collectively created such incredible nice things, that are meant to be free (libre) and shared, and that with a bit of knowledge can be also be gratis (as in money, not in time of course). From that moment and for a long time since, I’ve been revolving around the ecosystem, either by using it, by signalling issues, and specially promoting opensource: sharing it with other persons.

However, since I’ve started working “professionally” as a developer, i.e., since I’ve worked for enterprises to earn a living. I’ve been mainly a Windows user. This has been because these enterprise have a long-standing partnership with them, or because they captured the enterprise in their ecosystem so it’s hard to work with them (or impossible if you are an employee) by using other O.S.

But I founded my own agency 3 years ago, and I still kept Windows on my main professional machine because, it was somehow a bit more easy, as I could have the same environment as clients, same software and tools. In hindsight, I guess it was a mix of have got used to it, some inertia, and some cheap ease of interaction. However, if I started to work as a freelancer and on an agency, it was mainly to be able to set my own terms!

And this makes us reflect on how business models are built around the capture of their users. Take for instance Word, when an enterprise or organisation, or even the government!, send you a Word document, it’s implicitly expecting that you are going to be able to read it, by using proprietary software, i.e., by having paid a licence or a usage fee for the SaaS version. Because even if open source alternatives make a great job in working with those files, it’s not always completely compatible, specially with formatting. And don’t you dare send a .odt to a business, they may not even trust you or look at you, at least, in a weird manner, which on a certain way, forces you to keep using the software for reputation or business relationships.

It’s astonishing how business may penetrate the market so in depth that they are able to impose their formats and way of working as some de facto propietary standard. In a way, if the standard is open and can be implemented freely by anyone, is not so bad, but there’s a difference between openess (of code, of source, of standards) and their governance. Because it’s their standard, they could change it as they want, they can change the standard itself, the way of using it, the licensing and so on. You can see this in app marketplaces (where you install your apps of your phone). If your phone can only use one marketplace, then you’re forced to only install, use and discover apps within that marketplace. Which retrain enormously your freedoom to use your own hardware, but also create a huge imbalance of power between the marketplace owner and applications developers, as they can now dictate prices, fees, conditions, licencing , attribution etc, acting as a gatekeeper. If you don’t comply with it, then you simply cannot access the audience.

And you see this in many other areas : Professional networking, business applications and databases, code editors and so on. And don’t get me wrong, standard are useful, they allow interoperability, but not when owned by a single or few players and there iss no power balance between the stakeholders. In any case, that’s a tangent on the subject, but it explains strongly why I was forced, in some way, to use software I didn’t necessarily like, but I got used to it.

So after all that internal questioning, I decided to make the change and I took the time, at a moment where business was more calm, to refocus on my initial love for open source and to make actions that were coherent with my preaching. I deleted Windows and installed Debian. And here I am, writing this new post in neo vim. I took a few days to reconfigure my pc, my workflow, trying to remember and learning a lot again! It’s still a work in progress, but it feels liberating, it feels great. And it has helped me to reconnect with that passion and interest.

I’ve started to configure nvim so I can comfortably write again with it. It feels so nice to be so close to the files itself. which is something I was trying to find again. I had it partially on Windows by using notepad++, where I really liked the possibility to add workspaces. Other editors felt so heavy, and IDEs are project oriented, but here I have again an interaction with the file I write directly, as a basic unit. It’s just text. It’s just a Markdown file. And it feels more natural.

I guess I felt this kind of reconnection with the values I shared when I dive again into this digital world since the latest FOSDEM, where I could exchange with so many people that are involved in interesting projects, I could experience again that feeling of community. And mainly, in an era of data extractivism and techno surveillance, the idea of getting away from data exploiting tools the most I can, it just feels right. And it may be a small step towards the right direction.

In any case, it’s not like we were not using open source or libre software, we were. LibreOffice, a self-hosted jitsi instance, XMPP, Gitlab, Ubuntu servers and others. But there’s a diferent feeling when you switch the OS of your main device. It feels like a whole new world opens. And I am just happy of rediscovering things that I thought I knew and that I have incorporated, but that got lost in time.

It may be a small step, but it’s a fundamental one.