How were you introduced to open source technology?

[Deanna]

With over 100,000 members - share how you were initially introduced to open source technology! We have varying stories, backgrounds, industries and skill levels that make up the fabric of this community, we would love to hear how your story began. 

This question is part of the 100K Member Contest - don't forget to kudo the original contest post to be entered. 

[anilkumar100]

I firstly learn about open source technology with a training get from a training institution and after that I learn many terms regarding to this technology by self.

now I am a system administrator with a company.

[raj-andrews]

I was using various Unixes at work; eventually, when the internet became accessible, I started hearing about "Linux" and one fine day downloaded Red Hat Linux at home; installed it and found it extremely convenient to use.  Creating solutions using Red Hat Linux became a side-hobby for me (samba, bash, appletalk, ipchains, honeypots, etc.) and eventually it has been my main professional tool.  The past 6 years with Openshift Container Platform and Ansible, has of course, added to the ease with which I could use "open source" - adoption has happened in corporate networks where hybrid (open source, closed source, other source) patterns co-exist.  My work in the 'cloud' space has been greatly enhanced, mostly because of whatever I keep learning in the "open source" spaces!

[diverdale]

I was working at IBM in 1994 (I believe). Well at that time they were deep in the OS battle of OS/2 vs Windows (Warp was coming out and Win95 was on the horizon) I always had a soft spot for X-Windows from my college days but had no option for something like that at work since we were 100% IBM PC for obvious reasons. Finally got a 'spare' machine and installed Slackware. It was a struggle to get stuff working and I got a lot of creative comments. Big blue was not a fan of my pet project at the time. 

I kept telling management there that Linux was going places ... haha...good times

A few years later, I did manage to meet Bob Young while working at the Lulu Tech Circus in Raleigh, NC. It was after he departed RH but it was a very surreal experience. I still have a Lulu hat that I made him autograph for me

[VinodKamalasanJ]

To break away from the cost of proprietary OS and software , I sought help from Fedora and the red-hat , the choices and alternative I got in the form of PostgreSQL, Mysql, python, perl encouraged me more towards Open source.

[acgx]

In 2000 @school a friend share with me about this opensource OS named Linux, he gave me a Debian CD, inmediatly i fell for it. And the rest is history

[sbhushan]

I was introduced to Open source concept while reading a book on comparative religions  "Being Different - by Rajiv Malhotra" , i have worked all my life on Microsoft platforms and never had a chance to explore this area. After reading his ideas wherein he compares this concept from Indian culture, it got me interested to see why there is so much of varieties in Indian culture (food, language, Gods etc)  and still there is a perfect harmony. I had heard about open source in past but never bothered to learn, after some research i found that the same analogy mentioned in the books applies here as well and why such world class products come from open source. On a lighter note -- it also makes sense to join the community that respects and innovates and keeps your job safe with unlimited learning and skills.  

[jgold]

I was initially introduced to open source at IBM. As part of the System x server group, the connection to open source technologies, like RHEL, was an important part of the strategy.

[storm49152]

It's actually a funny story... In the early '90's I started repairing PC's, monitors, printers, etc., in a computer shop. I originally worked with MS-DOS, Windows and later on did some networking with Novell Netware and WinNT. At some point, I've been MCSE on WinNT4. Luckily, that's all a long time ago, but this is where I was coming from.

Around 1997 or 1998 I had a friend who thought that (Red Hat) Linux was great, and he urged me to try it, as "it is much better than MS-DOS or Windows". At first, I tried Red Hat Linux 5.2, but things didn't work: I had 2 Intel EE16 NIC's inserted, and only 1 NIC was recognized (yes, I wanted to try to build a firewall using a PC I had lying around). At that time, my *nix and thus Linux knowledge was close to non-existent, so I left it alone, "having other things to do". Also, the internet wasn't of as much help as it is today.

When this friend alerted me that Red Hat Linux 6.0 was released, I gave it another try, promising myself that if it still didn't work, I'd never touch Linux again. However, with that version the issue I had was solved, so I stuck with it. From that time, I've been using Linux more and more, bringing it into places where I had issues with Windows and I knew that I could fix it easily by using Linux instead.

Finally, in 2006, I made the jump to full-time Linux administration, and in 2009 (or so) I started using Fedora as my primary desktop OS. I'm RHCE certified since RHEL 6.

[chandrasred]

My mentors introduced me when I started learning about Linux [ RHEL ].

[Chetan_Tiwary_]

Hello everybody !

I was introduced to Open source technology during my first Job and my first IT Project ( 10 years ago ) where in I was introduced to OS softwares like Ubuntu, Cent OS , Solaris and the monitoring tool like NAGIOS. 

The very idea that a technology , which can be built on a foundation of collaboration and sharing , which is free to use, modify, and redistribute , and which is more customizable than proprietary software and which is more secure too,  itself is very  intriguing and appealing to me personally. 

Since then I have been using open source software for many years now, and I am a strong advocate for it. I believe that open source software is a valuable resource, and I am grateful for the contributions of the open source community.

The recent revolutions like Kubernets , Prometheus and Grafana etc have solidified my firm belief and support to Open Source Technology. 

Thank you Open Source Community !!