At the Red Hat Summit, the Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst He has commented on how open source increases our possibilities. There are many open source projects and we all know their advantages and the improvements they bring to our lives and that is what Jim has come to ensure:
«It is fascinating to see how the world continues to change around us. And it seems that changes are happening faster than ever. Our Red Hat Summit it has become a kind of forum where I can hit the pause button and reflect on how far we've come and where we want to go. "
«When reviewing the topics that I have dealt with in recent yearsNow I see how we have been following the evolution in the way people work. Three years ago, for example, I spoke about the power of participation: how people who work in a team in an open and transparent way are more competent when it comes to solving problems. Then two years ago, I focused on the impact of the individual, participation in open source as an active sport where individuals need to take initiative. And last year, I shared my perception that we need to rethink how we work in an age of disruption.«.
«From my current point of view, I am surprised that Let's be on the cusp of another disruptive changeI would call it a 'movement' from now on, which will open up all kinds of possibilities for our society to grow and evolve in the future. But to appreciate the kind of impact this change will have, we first have to look back to recognize that people used to work and live very differently than we do today. It is not the first time that a change in the way we think and work has led to an explosion of progress.«.
Jim has paid special attention to various points that certify this:
Rethink our limits:
“Half a millennium ago, before we believed in science and rationality and in the process - before the scientific revolution - we were not allowed to ask questions or debate what the world meant and how it behaved.
Then began a radical change in the way we acquired knowledge of the world around us. The Scientific Method emerged, thanks to individuals whose curiosity could not be contained. Brave pioneers like Galileo, who doubted what he had been told by what he could see in the night sky, even if this doubt led to prison or even death, began to question the world around them.
The more people questioned what they saw, the better and deeper their questions became. As a result, we went from a world in which we believed what high authorities told us to a world in which conclusions were based on observation and experimentation. As Sir Francis Bacon, who is often credited with being the father of the Scientific Method, so aptly put it: “If a man begins with certainties, he surely ends with doubt. But if we are willing to start with doubts, we may end with certainties".
At the heart of the Scientific Method is the insatiable curiosity about the world around us. It is a methodology for asking why things work the way they do, and then learning through experimentation and trial and error. It is a shift from deductive to inductive reasoning, from top-down thinking to bottom-up thinking. It is about the freedom to explore what might be possible, beyond the limits that any higher authority might try to impose.
The impact on the world around us:
Adopting this type of empirical methodology changed the way we understood almost everything we did and saw. And it changed our way of thinking, a way of thinking that spurred the innovative movements that created the modern world.
When we realized that the Earth was not the center of the universe, we entered the Illustration, which introduced new ideas such as individual freedom, constitutional government, and religious tolerance. The new determination of the inventors of key technologies such as the steam engine, the telegraph and the Bessemer process for the production of steel led us to the Industrial Revolution. Learning anatomical theory - from germ theory to advanced surgical techniques - produced a Medical Revolution It has transformed our fundamental understanding of disease and our bodies.
All these advances were the result of a learning that took place thanks to the continuous questions that were asked and those who tried to find the answers.
The science of discovery continues today, even in the world of software open source. The principles of curiosity, collaboration, meritocracy, and independence are the foundation of the empirical methodology and the open source style. We know this because we live by those values every day I enter the cultureto internal from Red Hat. And that is why we can develop a modern architecture that is unlocking the potential for developers and companies to continue growing in this time of change.
And as with Bacon and his contemporaries, we do not travel this road alone. Thousands of open source pioneers and communities have pushed open source beyond perceived limits.
Open source has become more than just a methodology for creating software. It has become a philosophy, a set of beliefs. Open source, and the open source style, has come to mean thinking beyond boundaries and exploring a world of endless possibilities.
A transformative movement:
By embracing the open source style, our community has helped transform technologies like Linux to make life easier. Our community has also changed “human technology,” that is, the way we interact and solve problems together. Open source has become the next wave of how we generate genuine innovations with impact.
Increasingly, many people recognize that open source offers a better way of working. Open source as human technology is breaking into the conventional. Businesses, governments and non-profit organizations around the world are embracing it.
I believe that open source has entered a new era and is becoming a transforming movement. Right now there are many people asking questions like: How do we imagine and realize the potential that this technology has created for us? How do we do it as individuals? And as a team? And as a company and, ultimately, as a society.
We do not yet know the answers to all of these questions, but with experimentation and collaboration we will continue to move towards them. Only by continuing to ask questions can we continue to increase our chances today, tomorrow, and in the future.
I invite you to join us and start dreaming big and ask yourself, together with us, what we can do next, together ”.