Secondly, if I can leave everybody with just one more takeaway (besides supporting your local craft organizations, wherever you may be), it's that the phrase "it takes a village" applies to businesses too.
Besides first and foremost my partner, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to everybody who has taught me; everybody who was a student with me at the Furniture Institute of MA, I've learned something from every one of them; everybody I've worked for, I've learned something from every one of them; anybody who's ever written a blog article I've read; anybody who's ever made a youtube video I've watched; my suppliers, especially the knowledgeable ones who've taken the time to not just sell me something but help me learn what fits my needs; my customers, especially the early ones who have worked with me as hiccups have arisen; countless friends both in the trade and otherwise who have provided moral support, gotten me out of jams, and been all around awesome; and finally my partner, who bears thanking way more than just twice.
I don't consider myself especially brave for having taken this step or having any particular wherewithal. For most of us in woodworking, there's an enormous number of people we have leaned on and learned from to get us where we are. I suspect this is true for most of us in software as well. There's a lot of companies built at least in part on open source projects, existing infrastructure, etc.
To be clear, I've never made a contribution of any significance to an OSS project outside of working a 9-5 salaried job. Your point is spot-on, but I can't rightly claim to have been on the sharp end of maintaining anything open source. Thank you to those who do.
Lastly, this all came about because I've been following the Fusion360 news on HN and looking into alternatives. I downloaded FreeCAD, started reading docs, and found a dead link in their README.md. I filed a bug, submitted a PR, and figured if I ever wanted it to be useful, I'd better sort the email account that github sends to. I cleared out a couple thousand github notifications for projects I no longer work on, and that many more bounce messages from my former employer.
Among the several hundred remaining emails was a slew of notifications about the bug that I filed 3 years ago. I figured I should check in, and the rest is (recent) history.
Secondly, if I can leave everybody with just one more takeaway (besides supporting your local craft organizations, wherever you may be), it's that the phrase "it takes a village" applies to businesses too.
Besides first and foremost my partner, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to everybody who has taught me; everybody who was a student with me at the Furniture Institute of MA, I've learned something from every one of them; everybody I've worked for, I've learned something from every one of them; anybody who's ever written a blog article I've read; anybody who's ever made a youtube video I've watched; my suppliers, especially the knowledgeable ones who've taken the time to not just sell me something but help me learn what fits my needs; my customers, especially the early ones who have worked with me as hiccups have arisen; countless friends both in the trade and otherwise who have provided moral support, gotten me out of jams, and been all around awesome; and finally my partner, who bears thanking way more than just twice.
I don't consider myself especially brave for having taken this step or having any particular wherewithal. For most of us in woodworking, there's an enormous number of people we have leaned on and learned from to get us where we are. I suspect this is true for most of us in software as well. There's a lot of companies built at least in part on open source projects, existing infrastructure, etc.
To be clear, I've never made a contribution of any significance to an OSS project outside of working a 9-5 salaried job. Your point is spot-on, but I can't rightly claim to have been on the sharp end of maintaining anything open source. Thank you to those who do.
Lastly, this all came about because I've been following the Fusion360 news on HN and looking into alternatives. I downloaded FreeCAD, started reading docs, and found a dead link in their README.md. I filed a bug, submitted a PR, and figured if I ever wanted it to be useful, I'd better sort the email account that github sends to. I cleared out a couple thousand github notifications for projects I no longer work on, and that many more bounce messages from my former employer.
Among the several hundred remaining emails was a slew of notifications about the bug that I filed 3 years ago. I figured I should check in, and the rest is (recent) history.