What was your gateway product to open source?

graphito@beehaw.org to Free and Open Source Software@beehaw.org – 216 points –
cnet.com

I want to talk about our gateway products to open source. You know, that one product or software that made us go, "Whoa, this is amazing!" and got us hooked on the world of open source.

What made you to jump ships? Was it the "free" side of things like qBittorrent? Did you even know that some of your programs are open source before you got into the topic?

For me those products were:

  • Android
  • Firefox
  • VLC
  • Calibre

Am thinking to order some merch and I wanna make it more accessible to people unfamilliar with open source culture. Now, am looking for fairly normalized but still underrepresented product -- maybe it could serve as a conversation starter and push some people to open source

161

Linux. I think I started playing with it around 2001. I was a computer nerd on high school and I wanted to be a hacker. I would be lying if I said that The Matrix wasn't a big factor. To this day I use black console with green text.

Linux for me as well. It was endless customization that hooked me

For me it was first VLC without really knowing what FOSS was, then KeePass while getting to know a bit about it, and finally Thunderbird. What did it for me was just how good and bullshit-free they were, especially in comparison to paid competitors. They really are the best products in their field, proving the quality often behind FOSS software.

I like to think of FOSS as enshitification-proof

FOSS is enshitification-hardened, not proof.

VLC remains awesome because the guy (maybe Jean-Baptiste Kempf?) that controls the project has refused to be bought, has in fact refused HUGE sums of money.

The original author of any project has to right to sell it with the corresponding licence changes at any time.
There's some legal grey area on something like Linux or VLC which have MANY MANY developer hands in the pie, and existing users could certainly fork off the existing releases, but VLC could pivot tomorrow to a for profit company and make future releases of the official VLC a paid product, if they choose too.

True, and so all honour to the creators for remaining FOSS, especially smaller projects spearheaded by a single dev

Altough usually when a shift like that happens in bigger projects there's a community fork, and the original project withers. Like Owncloud -> Nextcloud , OpenOffice -> LibreOffice, MySQL -> MariaDB

You could argue there's some degree enshitification through the Ubuntu snapification driven by Canonical. Although that's not so much about making Ubuntu deliberately worse, it's more moving Ubuntu forward in a way that aligns with Canonical's strategic goals. So its "paying the strategy tax" rather than direct enshitification.

For collaborative projects like Linux I believe every contributor would need to agree to any license change, which is practically impossible

Using linux as an alternative to windows and really enjoying it.

Firefox and VLC on Windows for years, which just worked. Later XBMC/Kodi and fileserver which where s... on windows but, again, just worked on Linux. When Windows later on kept nagging for something I migrated to 100% Open Source and have been a happy camper ever since!

Getting a free Ubuntu live CD back in 2007 when I was a teenager. We had the shittiest internet, I think it was like 512kbps ADSL, so it was really hard to download software. No one I knew at the time was into linux or open source, so I learnt about it all from that Ubuntu CD and the smaller programs I downloaded with it once setting it up. I learnt GRUB and dual-booted it on the laptop I had for school.

Gaim.

GIMP and Mozilla Browser were a couple of my early ones as a Windows user, but I probably saw those as worse, or at least less polished, versions of other software. Gaim (later Pidgin) was the one that first made an impression on me.

AIM was important software — it basically was social media to me at the time — and I'd stumbled into using third-party add-ons (for example, DeadAIM) for the official AIM client to add extra features and block the in-app ad banner. But it was always a cat-and-mouse game where AOL would try to block add-ons and the developers would have to work around that.

Gaim was refreshingly immune to all that stuff... it simply didn't support ads, and all its advanced features were built-in. That it supported other messaging protocols was a nice surprise too, and to this day has soured me on siloed, proprietary messaging apps. The GTK UI also looked and felt a little exotic on Windows XP.

When I finally moved to Ubuntu, having apps like Gaim, Firefox and GIMP ready to go made things pretty comfy.

There really wasn't a specific gateway product, and I'm still using closed and open source solutions back to back.

User experience and user interface are more important to me than open source. The only consideration I have beyond that would be privacy & security.

For instance I've always used Firefox and rejected Chrome due to data privacy concerns, and would use a portable chromium installation if a website was inaccessible with FF. On the other hand side MS Office and Photoshop are vastly superior to libre office and gimp.

When it comes to applications I use once in a blue moon for a few minutes at a time, I'll usually go for FOSS, but moreso because it's free and the UI can be as ugly as it wants if I don't have to stare at it for hours on end.

And well, I absolutely despise Apple as a company, so using Android was pretty much without alternatives, after BlackBerry discontinued their OS.

I'm very much the same. It mostly depends on "does the open source program do what I need/want?" If not, I'm okay with using a closed source version of it.

My current number one example here would be spreadsheet calculators. Years ago (and for my personal use) I only used LibreOffice/OpenOffice because it did/does all I need. But at work I need to use MS Excel not only because it's what the company has but also because the tables function and everything that relates to it (like data slicers, automatic expansion of formulas and formats, etc.) is really awesome and either super complex to replicate or straight up impossible in LibreOffice. And a couple months ago I decided to optimize the Excel sheets at work by incorporating some VBA macros. It's super useful and I couldn't find an open source alternative to it that would not run into problems on existing VBA-Excel sheets very, very quickly.

On the other hand I have photo editing / art programs. For those, I happily hopped from one FOSS to another (GIMP to Krita and I think I had a third one at some point as well) because I actually only need the "basic" and "on the surface" tools of such programs. And so I never even began feeling a pressure to use a closed source program.

Apache. This was over 20 years ago. The web server that everyone seemed to be using was free to download and open source. That made a big impact on how I viewed free software, and encouraged me to use more of it.

Gimp, OpenOffice.org, VLC, Slackware, and on and on after that. Every flavor of Linux: RedHat, SuSe, Ubuntu, now on Manjaro and Endeavour.

My first contact to FOSS were probably Firefox, Open Office (before libre office existed) and Gimp.

Slackware. Just before I started college I was sent the list of baseline requirements for comp.sci classes. Windows 95 or Windows NT, Visual C++, and a serial connection. I didn't have the money for '95 or NT; I was still using an 80486 with four (just before moving on campus, I traded up to eight) megs of RAM and wasn't in a position to get a new box (though I did drop pretty much my entire discretionary budget for the next two years into a one gig hard drive, which got me all the way through undergrad). However, there was a BBS in my NPA called Monolith, which was basically a Slackware Linux box with two dialup lines running homebrew BBS software. The sysop let me download the boot, root, A, D, and N disk sets (one floppy at a time - it took weeks) and helped me set up a basic Slackware machine. Once I got up to school I was able to set up a serial connection (and later, talk the building into lighting up my floor's ethernet lines). The rest, as they say, is history.

The first FOSS product I ever used would have been either Firefox or OpenOffice.org, back in ~2010. I also used to like VLC.

The product that got me to go almost exclusively FOSS, however, was Linux Mint. I installed it on an old ThinkPad that my uncle had given me in 2019, and I was immediately impressed that this twelve-year-old notebook with (at the time) 4GB of RAM and an Intel Centrino processor could now easily outperform my brand new HP (which ran Windows).

It was only about a year later when I installed Mint on my HP, followed by my old Acer (which had been on a shelf for the last two years), and most recently my 2007 MacBook (which I keep around because it's the only thing that can operate my scanner).

Although I technically used OSS before (ie Firefox), Linux (Ubuntu) is what made me actually start caring about it.

For me it was a combination of factors: Windows has been going down the shitter for at least 10 years now, FOSS software has been getting better and better, and I've learned to use more FOSS tools as I grew tired of dealing with Windows.

If I had to point at one project that made me go "Wow, this is amazing", I'd say ffmpeg. Even in my Windows days, I've always enjoyed digital preservation, when I discovered ffmpeg around 2015 it was an eye opener, so many features, so many options, I've been using it on a daily basis ever since.

Mhm my first FOSS was probably The Gimp two or so decades ago. Previous to that I used Corel Draw and Paint Shop Pro. Suse Linux on a CD followed soon after as a test, but it didn't hold me for long.

Wow. I also used to use GIMP about two decades ago, but I was a kid and I had no idea PS and Corel Draw existed back then. Since you mentioned already having experience with PS before Gimp, how did the two compare to each other at that time for you?

I didn't had experience with Adobe Photoshop (PS) back then. But The Gimp was quite similiar to the features of Corel Paint Shop Pro. The UI was quite different though, as PSP (7.0) had everything contained in their Main Window whereas The Gimp (2.0) was using the floating panels.

I can't even remember... It was probably when I first heard about Linux in the early/mid 90's. I got Slackware in 93 or 94 and fascinated by the idea in general.

Hell, if might even have started before that when I was first learning to read and read through our encyclopedia collection like bedtime stories (I was obsessed with reading anything in print once I learned how). I know that's how I learned about the internet.

I got pulled in after hearing the term "copyleft". Red hat 6 was out (version numbering scheme has changed since then). I was a teen and into skateboarding and punk so I was attracted to this legal document that used the system against the system. I became a Linux evangelist to fight back against Steve Ballmer and big bad Microsoft. Felt good to have a glimmer of hope.

How do you feel about Microsoft now owning GitHub ;-)

Python.

Also just getting away from MacOS and Windows. That was running away not toward though. Python was the towards.

Not my first libre product, but definitely the one that got me into searching for libre alternatives - OpenOffice. Despite not being great at the time (or ever), i was amazed by how complicated microsoft turned 365Office into. I suddenly had to buy subscriptions to all of the office products for outrages prices just so that i can have a simple words editors? Screw that, i googled for "open source office software" and never came back to m$Office.

Nothing, I didn't think much of it or cared if something was open source or not. It's when I started to become privacy conscious I started to care, though one program in my childhood that I actually thought was cool but not necessarily because open source was 7-zip - it's free winrar that worked better for me.

For me, Blender was probably my very first introduction into FOSS. I was using it because it was free, but I also liked the concept behind having a useful software the people used everyday to make cool projects like movies and animated shows. I did a project on it in. What really got me down the rabbithole was Debian. I had come across it in computer class, and I really liked the interface. i did more research and came to love Debian for being a stable distro run by the community. From thereit's history.

I can't say I actually recall. My dad was a software developer and into open source software so I was around a lot of that growing up. Firefox was my first web browser, OpenOffice writer was my first document processor. My dad installed some open source games on an Ubuntu machine for me to play. It was a little bit of everything.

Slackware Linux, on a bunch of floppies. Oh man, when did I get old?

Make sure you get me back every floppy disk! Last person I let use mine to install Slackware, corrupted two out of the 24 disks. That was rough.

About 20 years ago. But same, though I mostly gravitated towards Debian.

Firefox 1.0

Not only was it better than IE6, it was also free! Not sure how aware I was of the libre aspect initially, but around the same time I also dabled in (Mandrake? Mandriva?) Linux, which exposed me to GNU, GPL, and the idea of copyleft.

And then there was VLC.

My computer suddenly died when I was an unemployed student, about 12 years ago. I had no money for a new one or repairs, etc. It was pretty devastating.

Then I somehow discovered my city's local Freegeek, (the one in Vancouver BC) - I was able to buy an refurbished Ubuntu tower for $35. They showed me how to use it, invited me back if I needed help, and were generally super kind and helpful.

It was a very nice introduction to the world of open source. I had no clue such a thing as free software and OS even existed before then. Ive been using linux ever since, as much as possible.

I... is that a thing that people have?

I mean, maybe I'm too old, but I don't know of anybody in real life that actively thinks there is a "world of open source". People mostly just use software. Software is either good or bad. It's either monetized or it isn't.

Maybe I come from a time where a piece of software attempting to charge a fee was seen as a cute quirk, or the extra charge if you wanted a printed manual, but yeah, this doesn't make a ton of sense to me.

People mostly just use software. Software is either good or bad. It's either monetized or it isn't.

This is true, but also, this ideology is mainly seen in Windows of macOS users - these users they just use software.

But there most certainly is a "world of open source", and you usually enter that world when you switch to an opensource OS like Linux. And the reason why it's a whole new world is because you'd predominantly use opensource software on such an OS, so you're going from a world full of mostly proprietary software, to a world full of mostly opensource software - it's a stark contrast.

So usually, at least for me, any talks of entering the "world of open source" usually begins with switching to, or trying out, an opensource OS. At least on the desktop.

On the mobile space however, particularly in the Android world, there's been a growing awareness and desire among the privacy conscious people to switch to opensource apps. More and more folks are tired of the ads and tracking and privacy issues that plague proprietary apps typically found on the Play Store, so people have been increasingly looking towards opensource apps, which are free from such annoyances, and as a result, opensource stores such as F-Droid and Droidify have been gaining in popularity.

So there's most definitely a world of open source out there, and the first step into that word usually beings with people getting fed up with corporations screwing them over, and thus looking for alternatives.

I have a bunch of asterrisks to that characterization. People on Android are on an open source OS and don't get into "the world of open source" much at all. That makes me think your narrative there is mostly true of performatively avoiding other software.

Honestly, my first time installing Linux was in a different millenium, and my personal experience is that the "world of open source" you describe comes down to sharing notes and taking pride about the rough edges and bad UX involved in the process as a badge of honor or sign of moral purity.

In my experience people using open source software that works well and integrates seamlessly cross-platform don't go to a different world. They just... you know, install Blender and do the work they need to do. Or use Android. Or set up a NAS and use it to store their files. Or have a Rapberry Pi and use it to play games. You know, they do things.

I'm cool with open source. I'll prefer an open source alternative when two options are equal in features and UX. I'll be honest, though, if there is a "world of open soruce" as you define it, it seems mostly kind of annoying.

People on Android are on an open source OS

No they're not, at least, not by default. The Android that's pre-installed on most phones is actually closed source, the only reason I mentioned Android is because it's the only mainstream mobile OS which allows you to sideload apps and even install alternative app stores. There's regular threads here and even back on Reddit showcasing opensource apps, and even people asking for opensource alternatives.

There's most certainly an opensource world, whether you acknowledge it or not, and I don't see why it's "annoying".

Could have fooled me, because I have maybe half a dozen Android installs on devices that run all the same applications and are functionally identical to any manufacturer version out there without being related to them at all.

That's my entire point, there is no major concern for most people about where their Android build is sourced as long as it runs Android apps. If the open source "world" is not dictated by being built on open source code and instead dictated by a label of purity based on the lack of proprietary, monetized or closed source portions then... yeah, that's annoying. It's computer veganism. I don't begrudge your choice to engage in it, but I do demand my own freedom to eat a salad any way I want it without arguing the merits of the lard that went into fying my croutons.

If nothing else, I'd urge for caution thinking that this slice of open source fundamentalism is who open source software is primarily serving (it's not, that'd be the users that use the software for software things) and some self-awareness about that group of users being out there.

Could have fooled me, because I have maybe half a dozen Android installs on devices that run all the same applications and are functionally identical to any manufacturer version out there without being related to them at all.

???

there is no major concern for most people about where their Android build is sourced as long as it runs Android apps.

And that's not my point at all. As I mentioned earlier, I only mentioned Android because it's the only mainstream mobile OS which allows sideload apps and has alternative app store. Whether Android in itself is opensource or not is irrelevant in this context, when I'm discussing specifically about Android apps, as an example. Also, I never claimed it was a concern for "most" people, and again, that's besides the point.

the open source "world" is not dictated by being built on open source code and instead dictated by a label of purity based on the lack of proprietary, monetized or closed source portions then... yeah, that's annoying. It's computer veganism

Actually, it isn't. It (the motivation for opensource) has nothing to do any of the things you mentioned, but more about transparency and control for end users (and faster development lifecycles for developers). As I've repeatedly mentioned, people are increasingly getting sick of their apps being filled with ads and trackers and all the corporate spying and data harvesting, and the general enshittification of services. Which is one of the factors driving end users seeking out opensource software.

No, it is not. You say that but there is zero evidence that "people" are leaving commercial software for open source software based on concerns about transparency and control. Those are positives in most people's minds, sure, but the open source software that dominates against commercial alternatives is the one that leads on features and usability. Sometimes solely on price and free access. Those factors are at best a tertiary priority, and sometimes not even that.

That's what I'm saying here. The online circle that considers that transparency and control are the primary reason to choose software at the expense of feature limitations or poor UX is a very small niche disproportionately focused on those issues. And performatively so, at least in highly visible places like social media and dedicated influencers.

I think open source is great. It's important. And yes, once monetization encroaches into the feature set (see Chrome attempting to DRM the Internet) it's crucial to have an open source alternative to bypass the loss of functionality. But the market doesn't move to alternatives based on their open source nature, they choose the most convenient software available to do the thing they need to do. Sometimes that software is commercial, sometimes it's free but closed source, sometimes it's open source. That's fine. It's not gonna change and it doesn't have to.

That is important because sometimes open source devs forget about that and don't focus enough on the things that matter to consumers. And sometimes the open source community, such as it is, will excuse this or even take pride on working around it on the basis of that performative sense of belonging and righteousness. I think that's a risk for everybody, which is the part that annoys me about it.

That's what I'm saying here. The online circle that considers that transparency and control are the primary reason to choose software at the expense of feature limitations or poor UX is a very small niche

And what I'm saying is, why does that matter here? The argument was about whether or not the opensource world exists, and has nothing to do with how big or small this niche is.

That is important because sometimes open source devs forget about that and don't focus enough on the things that matter to consumers. And sometimes the open source community, such as it is, will excuse this or even take pride on working around it on the basis of that performative sense of belonging and righteousness. I think that's a risk for everybody, which is the part that annoys me about it.

I don't see what's wrong with that or why it should annoy you? If you disagree with the dev's philosophy, then fork the software and fix it yourself, that's the beauty of opensource - you don't need to agree with the dev or wait for them. And if you don't have the skills to fix it yourself, sponsor someone who can. Or just use a different software. No one's holding a gun against your head and forcing you here. There's no reason it should annoy you.

See, it's annoying because I do care. Like I said, I think OS is important. The culture around it determines how projects grow and are handled, and that's a much bigger problem than "disagreeing with a dev".

Regardless, the idea of forking forever based on petty disagreements and cultural drama is very much part of the problem, not a solution and an unsustainable pattern. It's a bit disingenuous to suggest that because the code is accessible there is no room for feedback or criticism. The free hand of the market will not fix all problems, whether it's with code or the economy.

I don't remember how I heard about it but you used to be able to order free Ubuntu disks. I got them to mail me one and I replaced Windows with it and never looked back.

I still remember how Firefox's tabbed browsing blew my mind.

Opera had it YEARS prior. Back when they were an actual browser and not just another chrome frontend.

Excuse me, what is tabbed browsing?

Opening multiple websites at once in different tabs. Back in the days, browsers would open an entire new browser window in the background, so your task bar would be one giant array of browser instances. Until it inevitably crashed.

Android and Firefox. GIMP is also amazing... Krita is one I found recently

Simply because I haven't seen it mentioned yet: 7-zip
But realistically VLC and Firefox

I started first in 2012-ish with Linux. That’s when I first heard of it, and decided to spin an VM with Ubuntu 12.04. Though initially I didn’t use it in real hardware for sometime, eventually I did install Fedora and been pretty happy ever since. Nowadays mostly use openSUSE and Arch.

Windows. More specially a netbook with vista, that ran so incredibly slow ot of the box that it pushed me to install linux. Technically i used Firefox before that, but that was when Firefox was the de facto standard in Germany, so i didn't care about FOSS.

I started with 4.3BSD on a VAX-11/750 in the mid 80s. At the time, you had to pay for a Unix license from AT&T, send a copy of the paperwork to UC Berkeley as proof, then they'd mail you a 9-track tape. (I think that was the process? I was just a lowly user on the system.)

Not exactly what we'd call "Free software", but after all that you did end up with the full source code.

I came across Linux sometime in the late 90's. It was free (as in pricetag, which is all I cared about at the time) and different so I was curious. The PC I was using wasn't mine so repartitioning wasn't an option but I found some ready to go boot from dos linux distro and gave it a go. And I loved it! And still do.

Remember the six CD sets from Walnut Creek?

You know, I never really came across them, which is surprising in hindsight. And in looking them up, I feel like I missed out!

Same. I remember someone telling me about a group of people developing an operating system and giving it away for free because they didn’t like Windows. The idea seemed absolutely wild. It was enough to pique my interest so I bought a box with RedHat 5.2 discs and a book.

This question has really got me thinking about the old days! I thought that it was looking into Debian Linux when trying to repurpose some old IBM PS/2 machines at work, because there were rumors of patchsets for the Linux kernel to support the MicroChannel Architecture bus and ESDI drives. But now I remember that it was actually GeekGadgets, a Unix environment for Amiga based around the ixemul.library. That's where I first read the GPL, and admired its legal Jiu-Jitsu of using copyright laws to ensure freedom.

I've never been a Windows user on my own machines as a result. I just went from Amiga, to FreeBSD, to Ubuntu.

Linux distro. It was a time were my area of interest was IT and I read a lot about it and tried several Linux distro.

First foss product I remember using was VLC, but what made me start seeking out Foss was F-droid with how I got tired of constantly trying to find something without unnecessary permissions, ads, or IAP.

That was what made me understand the true value of foss, and not just because something isn't paid with the intent of profiting doesn't mean it is worse. It can sometimes be much better and more respecting of your privacy with how hungry for telemetry companies are these days.

VLC but it wasn't love at first sight, but it opened a whole new world of FOSS to me

To this day I still don't know why the fuss about VLC, I prefer MPC-HC

Probably Linux. It took me a couple of attempts, but at a certain point I got more motivated to stick with it and research how to fix problems instead of quitting it. That gave me a lot of general Linux knowledge to where it's much comfier now.

It was Mozilla for me back in 2000. I gradually replaced all the proprietary apps I was using on Windows with FLOSS alternatives and then finally made the mover to Linux around 2010. The only closed stuff I use now is an iPhone and I despise it.

Postfix! I worked at an E-commerce company that sent newsletters(spam) through shitty Windows SMTP servers. Looking for speed and some other neat things (DKIM and modify headers) I setup postfix on Debian and I guess this system is still running. Quickly after that I explored NGINX as a reverse proxy for yet again shitty Windows IIS webservers. This was my entry to open source and Linux in general.

For me those products are:

  • Linux
  • Firefox
  • Bitwarden
  • Libreoffice

Probably Mozilla.

Yep, for me it was the Mozilla Suite and then Firebird (to become Firefox)

Funny enough it was Windows.
Year of our Lord 2015, Microsoft was pushing for Windows 10, I was using 7 and wanted to keep doing so. One of the last updates completely broke my system, so I said "fuck it", backed up my files and installed Ubuntu.
From that moment on I gradually abandoned proprietary software at the point that today I live almost completely on FOSS.

For me-

  • Linux
  • F-Droid

Signed up for Ubuntu free CD. Got 10.04 LTS. Was such an improvement from vista on a core 2 duo and 3gb ddr2. Only moved complete to linux in 2019 after years of tinkering with couple RPis and getting the hang of using linux.

Free Ubuntu CDs were awesome back then. "What do you mean I can just order 10 and pay nothing, not even shipping and just give them away?!?"

Definitely beat having to order packs of Debian releases, because Internet was slow and CD burners were expensive.

I too had same reaction when i received three disks. Till then i hadnt held a professional CD of anything and here i had for free. Subsequently got fedora and got turned off by how laggy it was for me.

At that time my access to internet was through a relative and it took ~9 hours to download 1GB. Net plan was 5GB free per month except 11pm to 3 am something wouldnt count against the free limit.

I don't recall if there was any limit per person but it made clear it still cost them to manufacture and ship so asked not to abuse them.

I only ordered once and got the disks for ubuntu, kubuntu and server edition of 10.04.

Took me a few years to realise what the server edition even was. Sadly I lost all disks but pretty much used the ubunutu gnome disks quite well.

I'm so old, when I started, software was either part of the operating system, or we had to get it for free, as source to compile it locally. Yes, there were commercial software packages for some applications, but most of the everyday stuff (editor, file browser, file transfer programs, multi-user online games and their clients) was open source. And many of us contributed, me included. I wrote Gobelin, an NNTP news reader/filter/aggregator, and Connector, a frontend for multi-user online games.

Emacs.

No really, it was like 1989 and I had to learn Unix systems for classes, and this white haired Emacs advocate convinced me to try it.

Not technically the first, but what got me into it was libre office. I was too broke too afford word so I was looking into alternatives.

Ubuntu 9.04. Jaunty Jackelope in 2009. Started by dual booting my Windows laptop. XP mainstream support ended that year, and I didn't want to upgrade to Vista, nor could my laptop handle 7.

My experience is basically the same as this. I'd had a disappointing experience installing Linux Mandrake years earlier, but Ubuntu offered everything I needed.

Ubuntu, maybe around 2007-2008.

I was starting college and got my first notebook. Up to that point we had only a desktop PC for all the family and this was the first time I could actually try things out without messing with my brothers’ stuff, so I eagerly jumped to try new things and format my notebook every 2 months after completely screwing something up.

The thing that hooked me up was the breath of fresh air in terms of customisation that a Linux distro offered compared to Windows. Funnily enough the mac OS style was my favourite so I eventually ended up buying a mac, but I always maintained a distro on bootcamp.

Stumbled upon Novell Suse Linux in the software section of Best Buy. That sent me down the rabbit hole. I actually got caught up in the world BSD specifically DesktopBSD. I was amazed by all the “free” software options.

I had been using some form of UNIX and some early GNU utilities for a few years by time Linux came out and had heard some rumblings about 386BSD (development started in 1989) via newsgroups, but it remained out of reach for me.

I heard about Linux (SLS Linux) being available late summer of 1992 and started saving for a 386, which I build later that year.

In the end, due to download limitations I started with HJ Lu's boot/root disks for Linux (floppy disk images), starting with kernel version 0.12 and happily living in the terminal.

Virtual terminals were the killer app that kept me solely on Linux for a long while. Being able to download on one terminal and code in a 2nd (I programmed a MUD for free dial-up Internet access for a local system) was amazing and far better than Windows 3.x during this time frame.

For me it was Python and C development on Linux. (So Anaconda.) I was pretty impressed by how much you can do with free software. Before I would have thought scientists would use expensive proprietary software for calculations. Later I learned that they sometimes still do, but many write their own code using work from others in the field who released open source software.

The very first FOSS software I used was red hat Linux. My dad brought home a copy of it and left it laying next to our copy of windows. Next time I had to install an OS I found it and tried it. It was terrible. Didn't do anything I wanted to do. Put windows in the computer.

Well I was going to say Foxit PDF Reader, but my memory failed me. It was just free. So probably Firefox, though I had no concept of FOSS at the time and kept giving up on it and going back to Chrome due to autofill being pretty seamless across the mobile/desktop apps. But I'm all in on team Firefox now and have really enjoyed finding new apps to self-host in particular. Currently trying (and failing) to stand up an instance of Cryptpad.

Emacs. That was the first editor I touched on my university's Fedora. And then I read that it had forks, was customizable with Lisp. I then read more about the Unix community and so on. That was interesting.

Win Server. For real, I want to build a server around 2005. Someone showed me Windows Server 2003 or 2000 (I forgor) and I was like: "no way I would ever work like this!" Went home and tried out Ubuntu for the first time and was amazed.

I guess ubuntu firefox(my sister installed them on my first laptop and they just worked) and vlc. Calling android open source is kinda a stretch.

There are many forks of Android that are used by a lot of people, like LineageOS and GrapheneOS. That is only possible because Android is completely open source

But for most people android is what they get on a samsung for example. Thats full of samsung and google closed source code. A lot of apps rely on google services and you need hacks to makenthem work without it.

@graphito Red hat Linux back in 99. Ran X11 Gnome with Metacity, bash and emacs. Still using Linux today. But Im on Arch with zsh, kde/plasma Wayland and NeoVim. Probably the only thing that I still use now from '99 is less 😃

Woah ... metacity brought back memories. Initially my reaction (comming from Sawfish/Sawmill) was "what? you mean I can't script my window manager with LISP?!?", but eventually its simplicity grew on me.

I've been exclusively on open source since at least 22 years now, but the one thing I always use to lure people to Linux is the bling, then they stay for the awesomeness.

KDE used to have awesome bling which I regularly used for that but lately they've been taking more and more of it away. Now event the 3D desktop is gone and it's mostly just a normal desktop, not really something to lure people with, unfortunately

KDE has neat stuff, but Compiz was the king of bling.

Yeah, but compiz has a tiny part of what KDE does

lol yeah, I remember installing Beryl on my laptop to show off the wild desktop effects at university.

got a lot of attention, but not many people interested in linux in the long ron

Likely not the best for merch: my first FOSS soft was DJGPP, in the DOS era. Tried to use BSD before that, but it was like 200 floppies, and never got it to work.

The thing that fully sold me though, was installing some drivers on RedHat 5.1, and seeing how "they recompile themselves! 🤯"... so dunno, was it rpm? make? gcc? kbuild?... hard to tell now.

Next thing was getting a second PC, installing a bare bones system, going into bash, ls /bin, and going man [everything].

I might still have some "man bash" stickers somewhere, used to have them on a few laptops over the years.

Slackware V3.1 in 1996. I bought a thick reference book that came with the installation floppies. Installed to an IBM Aptiva, forget the model and processor.

Linux. I signed up with my first proper ISP as a kid in the '90s. The service included a shell account on their Linux server accessible by telnet. I thought it was really cool and decided to see if I could run it on my own computer, and to my delight, I could.

Android. I grew up with old phones where you chased the new trend but you always lost something or you where limited to what manufacturer’s limited idea. This one has good ring tones. this has amazing camera. This got real games. This one has music buttons. This one has apps(not really apps but back then impressive for a phone)

Updates did not exist what you got in box was what you got. suddenly this device comes out where you could do anything.

I could install real Linux, community supported software and made it better. This was my gateway because why should I accept to pay money when the moment I given you money you moved on and forced me to buy next stuff but forgot the great things you done?

My buddy’s mom took his pc as punishment for some nonsense. We cobbled together some parts so he could secretly play an online flash game with me. His frames were seconds behind mine. But we installed Ubuntu on it since we couldn’t afford windows in high school. So I learned about Linux.

For me ist was FreeCAD. From there to Linux and down the Rabbithole

I had used plenty of open source products in the past, but the first one I truly learned the "why it's important" is home assistant. Seeing the strong community and reading more about open source projects and why it's to everyone's benefit.

We can make a far superior, safer, and community first product.

Wow. I honestly can’t tell. I think it was ChromOS? Indirectly of course.

Years and years ago, I was really frustrated with windows on my tiny laptop, and I wanted something different. And I loved ChromeOS back then, but I couldn’t afford a Chromebook, and I was looking for something that had a similar interface.

So I looked online, and people were recommending Linux, but I already knew of Linux, as I had a terrible experience with Ubuntu a while before (it was using Unity, to give you a timeframe). But eventually, I found something, it was a post on Reddit by someone looking for something like me, something that would look like what chromous looked like at the time, that was as simple, and one of the best suggestion there was a distribution by the name of “SolusOS”, Specifically, the Budgie variant.

So, I installed it on my little laptop. I fell in love with it, the whole thing, the desktop, the project, Linux as a whole, And then they just kind of snowballed from there. Solus was my go to distro for years.

Now I’m stuck on a MacBook Air, on Mac OS, for many reasons, and I want something new. But even before that, when I had to give up on that laptop and Solus for various reasons, I used many others distros. And I really loved some. But I still miss my tiny laptop and Solus on it…

I miss this simple joy of just using my machine and it just working. I feel like, every piece of tech that is in my life, right now, to try and simplify it, to help me do things, is only making my life worse, and bothering me with stupid stuff at every turn…

Or maybe it’s because I just grew up, I became an adult, lots of things happened in my life, and I just miss how simpler things used to feel back then, maybe I just reflect that in my technology. I don’t know. But I miss it… a lot.

I think it was Okular. I was looking for a way of editing PDFs without ads, invasive software, or subscription based payments.

OpenFOAM. I needed powerful software to do CFD that was free, as in free beer, and found OpenFOAM. To run it on windows, the installation instructions first step was install linux on a vm then follow the linux installation instructions. I did that and started using the vm for other stuff until I found myself using the vm for most tasks, but kept using windows for gaming. To learn more, I got myself a pinebook, which replaced most of the usage of my vm. When windows decided to self destruct, I had learnt enough to install and configure arch with minimal help. Now, nothing can persuade me to go back.

OpenTTD. Sure, I had used android, but it was the first thing I consciously knew was open source and enjoyed.

DDWRT technically came first for me, and m0n0wall, but OpenSolaris is where I really started to use it.

For me it was probably Gimp and then Linux (specifically mandrake). I'm shocked I havnt seen mention of VLC yet though, as it's another one that gets use every day for me.

First used Linux mint in 2007, was fascinated and frustrated at the same time with why things didnt work like on my windows PC, I now have a dedicated Linux Laptop (linux mint)

I don't remember exactly anymore, but I guess... Firefox? And then Ubuntu after I got "serious" about it.

It started with Fedora for me, then Firefox but OpenOffice was the first that made me think "hey, that's good for everyone, not just geeks like me, I gotta show it to my friends and clients"

Oh god, it must be from the 80s-90s, I'd say BSD, it was incredible to have sources at the time. I remember it was BSD4.3

Red Hat 6 on the front of a magazine in 2000 which was an interesting curiosity, and then a Fedora Core 2 live disc my university lecturer was handing out in 2004.

For me, the gateway was via palm pilot careware. My dad had a PDA when I was a kid, and he let me learn how to program it. Then I learned that there were websites to download software for it, and some of that software was "careware", ie pay only if you're able. Something clicked in my head that I could both write and access software without cost being a barrier, and that got me reading about FLOSS philosophy as I entered high school and suddenly I was dual booting ubuntu on the intel iBook I had saved up for and then it was too late for me: FLOSS had me.

Teeworlds. When I was a kid I searched up "free online multiplayer games on pc" and it actually led me to this Wikipedia article full of open source games. I tried out teeworlds and I was hooked on it and it led me to playing other open source games like cube 2 and open arena. In my head, the term open source meant "free stuff". Searching for open source stuff led me to discovering Linux and trying it though the Wubi installer and eventually moving to it a few years later.

I've used a few open source programs before studying CS without knowing what FOSS was, but the time when I really got into it and started diving deeper is probably after installing Arch Linux