Open Sourcing Isn’t Just For Code — The Value Of Sharing Know-How Even When (Almost) Nobody Is Listening
Why I Believe In Posting About Obscure Topics That I Know Few People Care About
Recently, a distant relative began following me on Twitter.
We haven’t spoken much over the years. In fact, we’ve grown distant. It happens. The pandemic doesn’t help.
Like many, through perusing my tweets, he picked up quickly on a couple of things. Namely, that:
- I like Linux and tweet a lot about technology-related things. Recently, I’ve tweeted a lot about failover internet because I’ve been working on setting it up at home. Previously, I sent in quite a number of posts about backups. As I work on “problems” I tend to discuss and share about them.
- I share the odd personal thing from time to time. Like that time I wrote on here about being diagnosed with ADHD.
He (she?) admitted that the tech stuff flew over his head — probably including the post I shared yesterday about setting up backup internet connectivity and why an ISP + cellular config is probably better than subscribing to two ISP lines.
And then — like many, I assume — he threw in a conclusion (this was relayed through another family member): Daniel is on Twitter. And it’s painfully boring. Ouch, that one stung!
Open Sourcing Isn’t Just For Code
Having used Linux for more than a decade, I’ve become a huge advocate for the whole enterprise of open-sourcing information.
The work of other open source advocates has enabled me to use technology I would likely never have been able to afford. And through that, I’ve developed a passion for technology that has greatly influenced the direction my career has taken to date.
Sometimes, it’s given me enough knowledge to be able to share that with others who are getting into the same things I was a few years ago — or a decade previously. It creates a fulfilling cycle. And it’s nice to be able to close the loop.
But more than that, open source has become a central part of my philosophy. About technology. But also about life.
Of course, as one grows older, the bills start accruing and the imperative to make money from one’s know-how becomes ever more pressing. There’s rent to pay — or a mortgage. Fancy technology hobbies that demand hardware which doesn’t pay for itself. Food to keep one living.
Which is why I think that the open source movement is always going to be circumscribed by the profit incentive.
Sure, society will produce the odd creative genius who inherits an enormous trust fund (or becomes independently wealthy) and can dedicate all day and night to creating things for the benefit of society (without expecting a profit motive). But such individuals are likely to be vanishingly rare.
The vast majority of people who enjoy sharing ideas — and thinking and open source projects — are folks like me. We do it for fulfillment and because we believe in the cause, get excited by the obscure topics we know about, and want to provide the blueprints of our work to help others take them further and in directions our brains weren’t able to envision. But we also need to pull back quite a bit because it’s not the work that pays the bills.
When I’m on the clock, I’m a marketing communications consultant. But I also believe in sharing what I’ve learned in the hope that it might help others to chart paths that might intersect with mine.
That’s why:
- I shared pretty much everything I’ve learned to date about freelance writing on a Medium publication I set up. Even though all my Medium writing is un-paywalled and thus I haven’t made a cent from the writing. As I’m far less focused on freelance writing these days, the publication is inactive. But I know — because I pick up emails from readers — that what I’ve shared has helped some people navigate the sometimes choppy waters of this line of work.
I’ve shared the actual backup strategy I’ve been using for 4 years on Github.
I provided enough detail about the failover internet solution I set up today on YouTube that just about anybody motivated enough and with enough technical literacy could set it up for themselves in their own homes.
I could even watch my own video if I wanted to replicate the setup somewhere else and I had already forgotten the steps I went through to set it up at home. When I detail technical steps like those I set out in the video below, I also do so to create documentation for my own use. But why not liberate that information for broader consumption?
Open Sourcing Information: For Me, For You, For The World
My approach to open-sourcing information is pretty simple: if I don’t have to make money from knowledge, I’m happy to let it go.
More than that, I believe in letting it go. And so I do.
I monetize selectively.
What’s left goes out to the community to do whatever they want with–if they want to read it, watch it, or use it at all.
In the course of doing this, I create documentation and a digital history that will chart the history of my own evolution — in technology, in thinking, and in life. And it may provide inspiration or be of use to somebody else. Or it may not. But either way is fine. I struggle to see how I lose anything by sharing what I know with the world. Even when the audience doesn’t exist.
Just as other creators who have published YouTube videos, Github documentation, and open access blogs have helped me, I’m glad to share information that potentially might be of interest. Even if it’s only to one other human.
I know that most people don’t care about setting up backup internet connections (even if they’re totally great and by minimizing your downtime could save your business money!)
I know that most people use Windows and couldn’t care less about an obscure operating system called Linux.
And guess what?
None of those things matter to me.
And none of them are going to stop me from sharing what I know about these topics. And the passion that I feel for them. Even if those who don’t care about those things will judge me as “boring” for sharing about them.
Because when I sit down to document or explain how (after hours of trial and error) I finally managed to get a cellular and ISP connection running in a cost-effective manner, I’m writing or recording that video for those who do care about these things.
They’re my intended audience. The ones who are also engaged in the subject. Who could run with my idea and then take it further. And feed it back into the open source community to provide me with impetus for my next project.
That’s why I open source. That’s why I share. With the internet, knowledge can reach anywhere. And boomerang back. It’s a great ecosystem to be a part of.
