SYNOPSIS

This essentially is the career development, understanding the customer/end-user and "what they don't teach you in school" part of a 2-hour lecture I gave in November 2005 at the University of Tartu in Estonia, restructured for a Debconf audience.

Additional inspiration came from my nomination on the Linux-tekijä 2005 jury (prize to be given in spring 2006 to the best Free Software activist in Finland for 2005) and the ensuing debate about what my title there should be.

DESCRIPTION

Free Software crept into my computing needs in 1996 without me ever noticing and yet affected me in more profound ways than I could have imagined:

- Catapulted me into a career in ICT,
- Taught me far more about technology than any end-user should or would know,
- Connected me to and then brought me to foreign countries I hadn't even heard of,
- Forced me to consider the deeper meaning of the word "communication",
- Familiarized me with the wonders of foreign languages and the intricacies of localization,
- Transformed me into the most FOSS-friendly human you'll ever meet,
- Brought me more friends and foes than most people ever get in their whole life,
- Ensured that I could never again find work in the commercial software industry (!).

These 10 years spent with Free Software, its agenda, its methodology and, most of all, its people, taught me far more about the meaning of communication, democracy, freedom and globality than anything I ever learned in school. They also earned this uncany guy, neither geek or suit, the respect and admiration (or despite and hatered - depending on your perspective) of both.

All this culminating with me entering Debian's contreversial New Maintainer process in 2005, despite being the most technically-challenged individual by any geek standard and yet armed with the sort of Makefile hacking skills that make business types cringe and wonder on which side of the geek/suit universe I really stand.

This is Uncle Q - your most passionate advocate and detractor at once - saying thank you and celebrating 10 years in your company by candidly sharing everything Free Software has thought him and by telling you how what he learned can make ordinary people become as passionate about Free Software as he is.

SEE ALSO

http://q-funk.iki.fi