{"id":122,"date":"2010-01-20T11:50:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-20T11:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/w\/?p=122"},"modified":"2021-09-01T13:28:24","modified_gmt":"2021-09-01T13:28:24","slug":"why-i-work-on-free-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/w\/why-i-work-on-free-software\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I work on Free Software"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I happened upon this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.linuxjournal.com\/article\/6214\">old LinuxJournal<\/a> article about how the University of Zululand in South Africa used <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mysql.com\/\">MySQL<\/a> and other Free Software to make do with a 128 kbit (and later 768 kbit) internet connection for their staff and students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This made me remember the trip I made to another African country, <a href=\"https:\/\/secure.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/wiki\/Burkina_Faso\">Burkina Faso<\/a>, 15 years ago:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"is-layout-flex wp-container-3 wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/blog\/img\/burkina1.jpeg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/blog\/img\/burkina1-small.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"310\" height=\"202\"\/><\/a><figcaption> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/blog\/img\/burkina2.jpeg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/blog\/img\/burkina2-small.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"299\" height=\"200\"\/><\/a><figcaption> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>With the huge amount of work and numerous difficult obstacles facing my work on the <a href=\"http:\/\/mariadb.com\/\">MariaDB project<\/a>, it can be hard to keep up motivation at times. It helps to remember why I am doing this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It must be about the time when some of these kids should go to University or start up new projects. Maybe some of them will work with software. I want them to be able to invest in local skills and infrastructure that they need, rather than in software licenses funding nice houses and boats in other countries:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"is-layout-flex wp-container-6 wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/blog\/img\/Bill_gates_house.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/blog\/img\/Bill_gates_house-small.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"299\" height=\"117\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/blog\/img\/Rising_Sun_Yacht.JPG\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/blog\/img\/Rising_Sun_Yacht-small.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"296\" height=\"128\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>(House and yacht pictures courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wikipedia.org\/\">Wikipedia<\/a> under the <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I happened upon this old LinuxJournal article about how the University of Zululand in South Africa used MySQL and other Free Software to make do with a 128 kbit (and later 768 kbit) internet connection for their staff and students. This made me remember the trip I made to another African country, Burkina Faso, 15&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/w\/why-i-work-on-free-software\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why I work on Free Software<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[3,35,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127,"href":"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions\/127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knielsen-hq.org\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}