Old Friends and Future Programmers
maddog's Doghouse
To build the future of FOSS, we need to focus on communicating its value – especially to young people.
Recently three things happened: the celebration of my 70th birthday, a Facebook discussion about songs of the mid-1960s, and the response to a birthday wish.
Being 70 years old has various consequences. I do not run up the stairs as quickly as I did when I was 18. I typically go to sleep earlier and get up later. I take a lot of pills to keep alive – not the fun stuff we may have done when we were younger. I start to look around my home and realize that I have to get rid of some of the things that remind me of my younger days, which brings me to the second topic.
Many of the songs of the mid-to-late 1960s were songs of protest, but also songs of hope and love. We protested what we considered needless wars and sang about making the world better – songs by Dylan; Guthrie; Paul Simon; Peter, Paul and Mary (amazing that after all this time searching for "PP&M" comes up with their names); and other artists. Their songs are still there, and more have followed, but I do not hear people singing them as much.
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