The first time I joined #gnome in irc.gnome.org it was odd. I think I must have been the first Sun person they had seen since the announcement that Sun was going to join the GNOME Foundation. The channel seemed like a bunch of...well let's be truthful for a bit...complete freaks and whackos at the time [you'll appreciate it more if you read the IRC log when the GNOME Foundation was announced]. I can't imagine how many people had message windows open and talking about this Sun guy who had just joined the channel.
I felt out of place. Random people were talking to me. But I was like this rugby jock, fresh out of college and no where near geeky enough to hold a conversation with these people. I cringe at the thought of ever seeing a log of when I first joined that channel. For some reason, I can't remember, I called myself 'Gman'. The name stuck.
But I kept joining. This GNOME thing seemed cool enough, and I had used it a bit during college. I was really supposed to be a release engineer for OpenOffice.org I think, and was just hanging around until my real manager got back. They kept talking about assimilation when I kept joining - something to do with borgs and Star Trek. These people need to get out more and get some exercise. Hell, ever kissed a girl?.
I remember my first GUADEC. That was a pretty stressful time. Everyone kept shouting at me from across the room, calling out 'Hey, Gman!'. I didn't know who they were, and eventually had to go for an afternoon sleep because it was all too much for me. But there were big names at that conference, and it was awesome to be able to meet them in person and put a name to a face. I was too much of a jock to fanboy them though.
But since those early years, I've made some life long friends. I've learned from them. I've listened to what they have to say. And for the most part, they make an incredible amount of sense. Don't dismiss them because you've been sheltered behind a proprietary development environment for so long, or because a 12 year old kid can code circles around you any time and any place. Quite often they have exactly the same ideas as you and when they don't, you have to push hard your idea home to them with good rationale. That's open source right there - a huge cooking pot of ideas and personalities, all extremely passionate about their work.
Some people just don't get that though. Because they're looking in from the outside. It's hard to believe, if you're not involved.
