Open Source Stories began as a conversation. A discussion about all the incredible things that we saw people building, creating and doing with open source technology and with the open source spirit. Red Hat is often thought to be synonymous with open source, and we’ve had the opportunity to be part of its evolution. We helped Linux move from a hobby operating system to a powerful platform that has helped to significantly change the IT landscape. We’ve seen open source “answers” in nearly every corner of IT, and we’ve been proud to be a leader in many of those efforts. It’s what makes us Red Hat. We’re also proud that Red Hat’s own culture has become a model for what an open organization built on collaboration, transparency and meritocracy can look like.
Along the way, we noticed something powerful - open source transcends technology. We believe that part of our responsibility as an open source leader is to shine a light on the stories that show the power and influence of the open source way.
And so Open Source Stories was born.
It began as a documentary series that showcased interesting ways to apply open source thinking. But since the premiere of our first film in 2015, it’s become so much more than that. It’s morphed into a larger platform that allows us to share the stories of what people can accomplish when things are open. Open Source Stories is a human-centered initiative that defines open source as not just technology, but a specific way of thinking that is becoming a leading innovation model.
What started as films, has expanded into articles, educational events and more. We’ve told the stories of a community-powered arts festival; a network of volunteers designing 3-D-printed prosthetics and giving them away for free; a high school that launched a student-run IT department; advocates for open health care records; organizations using open source to build self-driving cars; and an art museum creating interactive and collaborative exhibits.
For me, the most rewarding part is seeing the connections that are made because of this initiative. In October, Jon Schull, the founder of e-NABLE - subject of our film “Open technology, faster progress” - participated in a workshop at Tate Exchange - focus of our newest film, “Art of Exchange”. Red Hatter Martin Percival also participated in the discussion that examined post-human production, exploring the value of collective creativity, open source, bias in machine learning and big data. The thread tying these seemingly unrelated entities together is Open Source Stories.
As Open Source Stories continues to grow and evolve, what I hope people take away from it is that open source is more than just a way to create innovative software. Open source is about building things without limitations, connections and forming new communities without boundaries. Open source can change lives.
These stories give us a glimpse into the possibilities created by an open and collaborative future.
Watch the films, read the articles and learn more about Open Source Stories. If you have an idea for Open Source Stories or want to share your own, send us a note or use #opensourcestories—we’d love to hear from you. To stay up to date on our efforts, sign up for our newsletter.
关于作者
Leigh Day is Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Red Hat. Throughout her more than 20 years at Red Hat, she has held a variety of positions. Her earliest role was creating an online advertising revenue stream to help supplement business for Red Hat® Linux® (Red Hat’s original boxed product). She advanced into product management and product marketing for Red Hat Linux and then moved into a pivotal leadership role—building an in-house Marketing Communications and Brand function responsible for simplifying, unifying and amplifying Red Hat’s unique messaging-voice to deliver noteworthy experiences for Red Hat customers and partners.
Day started at Red Hat in 1999 as employee number 139, collaborating to make Red Hat a world-class software company built around open source technology. She was an integral part of the Marketing team that launched Red Hat into "the enterprise" with Red Hat Enterprise Linux in 2001, and has led the team responsible for Red Hat’s annual user conference, Red Hat Summit, since its inception in 2005. This gathering of Red Hat customers, partners, developers, and associates has become the industry's premier open source technology conference. Under Day’s leadership, Red Hat has launched many successful marketing programs like Command Line Heroes, redhat.com, Open Source Stories, Co.Lab, and more. Day also led the Marketing team for more than 20 acquisitions at Red Hat, helping to expand awareness of our portfolio as it grew and evolved.
Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies.
Red Hat helps customers integrate new and existing IT applications, develop cloud-native applications, standardize on our industry-leading operating system, and automate, secure, and manage complex environments. Award-winning support, training, and consulting services make Red Hat a trusted adviser to the Fortune 500. As a strategic partner to cloud providers, system integrators, application vendors, customers, and open source communities, Red Hat can help organizations prepare for the digital future.
