My First Blog Post… Ever 🎉
I am taking a ton of inspiration here in starting a blog from the wise words of Scott Hanselman. I listened to a talk on YouTube (one of many) from Scott a little while back that really reasonated with me and is certainly an inspiration for anyone to think about starting a blog. You can peep the full video at NDC Keynote - Building Teams Through Systems Thinking and Stories. Like all his videos, it is well worth a watch. This is was got me though:
You have a finite number of keystrokes left in your hands before you die.
If you want to skip directly to this part of the talk - shortcut. The message is very powerful and certainly very “morbid” as Scott so eloquently puts it. But it is certainly the undenaible truth and how we use those keystrokes matters which is the point that Scott goes on to make in the talk. And with that comes my inspiration to start this blog. Now I don’t personally think I have anything earth shattering to say but I do strongly believe that there is at least some things I might be able to share that can bring some small benefit to others.
Why Open Source?
So one thing I’d like to commit to the ethos and preserve, taking a queue from Scott, is something I wrote a couple of years ago and posted on a forum. My post was later removed from said forum and I was banned. Fortunately, I am not likely to be subjogated to the same fate here, on my own blog so I will share it here.
An Ode to Open Source
Forewarning: This is very directed towards the mortgage LOS ecosystem I am actively a part of and does not reflect the broader attitudes towards open source in the software industry. Some back story, there was some legal battles over some open source stuff in this ecosystem and that is what led to this post. With that said, here goes…
Just finished watching this documentary on React and this part at the end here feels quite relevant.
Its certainly valid and sage advice to approach any open source project with caution. Its an imperfect ecosystem that has many challenges and rough edges. Arguably, closed source software is also software at the end of the day and inherently subject to the same imperfections and certainly has its own set of challenges. Ultimately there are pros and cons to both that should be adequately weighed and evaluated for each organization in terms of what best meets their needs. The unfortunate reality we now find ourselves in is an ecosystem that does not support having a choice. The option is being taken off the table and the great consequence, in my humble opinion, is that innovation and opportunities will be stifled as a result.
With that, the future starts to look a lot more exclusive. For example, say I have an idea for something that doesn’t really have a revenue path but I feel like it’d benefit Encompass users. What’s my path forward in this new ecosystem? Do I first establish a company, quit my job, sign up for a partnership with ICE, develop something, and then try and make money off something that isn’t going to generate revenue to begin with? Point being, a lack of support for open source contributions limits the solutions available in our ecosystem and that may ultimately harm lenders using Encompass.
The Final Word
I still adamantly believe that open source delivers immense value and is worthy of broad support. I fully support anyone’s desire to make a profit but don’t feel like that should come at the expense of shitting on the goodwill of others. That is one of the beautiful things about open source, if you don’t like what a project is doing, don’t use it; or better yet, contribute to it and make it better. If any of this resonates with you, I would implore you to consider contributing to open source projects that you use and benefit from. If you cannot contribute code, your time, or other means, there are a ton of great options out there for offering monetary support such as:
I don’t personally like to broadcast donations I make but in order to not seem a hypocrite:
Finally, I’ll give credit to this blog template and the open source projects powering it.
Template from markhorn-dev