Linux and Open Source Alignment and Contribution Goals

I’ve started to write, but I don’t have a title for this post yet.

First off, it’s been a while. I haven’t written anything for quite some time. Reason being, work. Also, I’m doing a 30+ hour a week Programming Curriculum at Bloc.io. So, time has been scarce.

My last article, distro-stopping a distro-hopper, touched upon a lot of things that I enjoy and interest me greatly. One of them is Linux. Although I have been able to stave off moving to a new distro recently, I do have to confess that it’s been increasingly difficult.

Currently, am using Debian. It’s great, but unfortunately, most resources in Debian go to either their ‘Stable’ branch or ‘Sid’. Yes, some effort goes into Testing, but there are some bug delays that will take a moment to get to ‘Testing’. Hence, this would make ‘Testing’ not a viable option for myself.

I’ve used ‘Sid’ briefly in the past. Though very usable and was able to maintain it usable for work purposes via a combination of Debian weather and the Siduction forums. But, it was extra work to upkeep a distro. It’s, for the most part, “Just supposed to work”. I don’t mind some minor tweaking, but once it’s up and running, I’d like it to stay that way.

Now, I’ve been flirting with the idea of moving to Fedora. Don’t get me wrong, I <3 Debian. The thing that gets me is that there is no clear commercial direction to it. Now, I enjoy it’s stability, but I have used Fedora in the past and have had a great experience with it too.

Now, Fedora, though also open source, is basically the proving grounds for the next RHEL version. Software on Fedora gets developed, matured, and then ultimately, cuts of that software gets put in a future RHEL. Now, why do I care about this? Because I am a professional in the tech industry. It’s all too easy to stay behind the market, and with Fedora, at the very least, I’ll see trends being pushed by the distro. These trends will of course, say something about the market, and give me a front row seat as to what’s going on.

Also, I’d consider myself a big Gnome fan, so Fedora would definitely align with this. Fedora, and Red Hat, are contributors to the Gnome project.

Finally, I’d like to contribute to a project that I’ll feel a huge synergy to, and can get some professional value out of as well. Fedora, though not a pure RHEL, will have elements that are congruent with RHEL, and hence would make getting a RHCSA cert all the easier.

Also, Debian doesn’t UEFI secure boot, which, up until recently, I didn’t care much for. But given that it is an extra layer of security, I think it might be a smart thing to consider having.

Also, contributing to Fedora is something that I’ve always wanted to do. To know that perhaps, my keystrokes would end up on RHEL some day, and be used by millions of people sounds REALLY cool. :D

I think I will migrate to Fedora, and from here on in, will also write about programming concepts as well as my journey towards contributing towards Open Source and Linux.