The open source community is considerable different from the corporate types that I’ve been meeting in my day job, for the past 20-plus years. There are a few people with degrees in computer science — and I’m quite comfortable in the university community — but there’s more people who don’t have that formal training. The user group is about sharing knowledge and helping each other out, which is refreshing.
One thing that I didn’t expect was that some major contributors to the Drupal community came to the meeting. The origins of Drupal are from a developer in Antwerp, but on the Internet, distances are small. Of course, there’s no reason that key communities members should live in Toronto … but I just never thought about that.
The Linux Caffe encourages various local open source user groups to meet there. Since I was running late for dinner, I decided to order a sandwich and drink. Open source means free, as in liberty, but communities should remember that supporters still need to make a living.