[Ambassadors] The Time Has Come to Say Good Bye

[Jack Aboutboul]

It's hard to say good bye, but part we must.  When you love what you do, 
when you love the people you get to do it with, when you love the way 
you do it, there is never a good time to leave, but there is a right 
time, and for me, personally and professionally, this is that right time.

I wish to reiterate my gratitude to each and every single person, which 
I summed up in my email announcing my departure which will always be 
here:  
http://jaboutboul.blogspot.com/2009/07/jack-is-going-going-goinggone.html.

In parting, it's hard to convey raw emotion as, personally, words cannot 
describe how privileged I feel to have been affiliated and employed by 
Red Hat and Fedora for the better part of the last decade.  To be a part 
of Red Hat and Fedora is to be a part of the nobility; a precious 
pedigree of ideological steadfastness, technological excellence, supreme 
work ethic, and above all else, the truest, kindest and most passionate 
and compassionate people.

At the same time, it is awkward to be both nobility and 
revolutionary--two roles which have historically been at antipodes--at 
the forefront of the great re-establishment of the philosophy of 
technology and how it is put into practice.  This extraordinary 
conundrum is what drew me to Open Source and to Red Hat and it should 
serve as a constant source of both inspiration and pride for each of us, 
constantly. Similar to the Gandhi quote which lines the walls of every 
Red Hat office, when they said we couldn't we did, when they said we 
would fail, we succeeded, when they said we were wrong, we have and will 
continue to prove ourselves right, every moment of every hour of every day.

This fierce belief in our ability to transcend and ascend to the highest 
of heights and noblest of peaks is what Red Hat stands for and it is for 
instilling this within me that I am thankful.  It is true, and those who 
doubt it, will be forever stuck in the vacuum of time as we climb ever 
higher.  Keep climbing, keep striving and most important keep your 
faith, we are in the right place and we are winning!

Escher was right.  Men step down and yet rise up, the hand is drawn by 
he hand it draws, and a woman is poised on her very own shoulders.  
Without us, this universe is simple, run with the regularity of a 
prison.  Galaxies spin along stipulated arcs, stars collapse at the 
specified hour, crows U-turn south and monkeys rut on schedule.  But we, 
whom the cosmos shaped for a billion years to fit this place, we know it 
failed.  For we can reshape, reach an arm through the bars, and, 
Escher-like, pull ourselves out.  And while whales feeding on mackerel 
are confined forever to the sea, we climb the waves, look down from clouds.

Now go tell the kids.

This is Jack, choking up and signing off.

Godspeed friends.