It occurred to me today that we and all contributors to open source projects are modern-day cathedral builders.
I'm Italian originally and as you know we have "a few" churches within our borders, including some really big and important ones. My hometown for example, Pisa, is most famous for its leaning tower, but has a beautiful cathedral beside it, standing there in one form or another since 1063 apparently.
I'm guessing few people admiring these buildings stop for a moment to think about the building process, hundreds of years ago. It turns out that while of course there were plenty of professionals hired for specific jobs requiring proper, professional knowledge, a significant portion of those building the cathedrals were, in fact, inhabitant of the area contributing to their own church in the only way they could: providing their labor when they were free from their day-to-day duties. In short, it was their hobby.
I can't but notice a parallel with many open source projects, where many people professional and not, contribute their time and knowledge for things that can be as small as a utility software or as big as operating systems and enterprise-level platforms.
I guess Terasology is a bit of an in-between, not quite a cathedral but not a tiny shrine in the countryside either. But contributing to it does make me feel somehow connected to those people, hundreds of years ago, doing what they could, when they could, and eventually helping build something beautiful.
Kind regards,
Manu
I'm Italian originally and as you know we have "a few" churches within our borders, including some really big and important ones. My hometown for example, Pisa, is most famous for its leaning tower, but has a beautiful cathedral beside it, standing there in one form or another since 1063 apparently.
I'm guessing few people admiring these buildings stop for a moment to think about the building process, hundreds of years ago. It turns out that while of course there were plenty of professionals hired for specific jobs requiring proper, professional knowledge, a significant portion of those building the cathedrals were, in fact, inhabitant of the area contributing to their own church in the only way they could: providing their labor when they were free from their day-to-day duties. In short, it was their hobby.
I can't but notice a parallel with many open source projects, where many people professional and not, contribute their time and knowledge for things that can be as small as a utility software or as big as operating systems and enterprise-level platforms.
I guess Terasology is a bit of an in-between, not quite a cathedral but not a tiny shrine in the countryside either. But contributing to it does make me feel somehow connected to those people, hundreds of years ago, doing what they could, when they could, and eventually helping build something beautiful.
Kind regards,
Manu
