9th Sandstone, 101 (mid-Autumn)

CptCrunchy sat by the smoking remains of a lynx bone table. As tribe scribe, he took his duties very seriously. While he insisted that to properly account for the tribe’s possessions he needed a better dining room, and living quaters, and study, and maybe a few trophies, he knew all of those would come in time. But for now, he had rolled by the sleve of his cotton fibre shirt to best show off his scars to their new guests.

His left forearm bears a massive straight scar. His right hand bears a massive curving scar. His right foot bears a very long straight scar. His third toe, right foot, is gone.

19th Limestone, 101 (early autumn)

“Sir, there are merchants here to see you. They say they’ve heard of us through the freelancers.”

“Thank you, Jaxy,” said Tarrlox, looking up from a tuskox skull he was decorating. “Please help coordinate moving our goods to the depot. I’ll be out once I’ve finished this project.”

Ours is the story of many of the great tribes. The legends tell of inspired leaders, striking their own in the wilderness, building their fledging clan to glory and conquest. The legends tell of heroic acts and great deeds, or bravery and cunning. But I know that many of the great clans started because of fractured tribes, regrouping after the great enemies beset them with steel and cannon. There is much honour in the old ways, but I fear that the glory of the orcish crafters—leather and ironbone, obsidian and raw strength—has met its match against the industry of the dwarves and humans. We fight to bring glory to those who have fought before us, but the humans and dwarves do not fight for honour; they clad themselves in metals that were not from glory in combat, and while it shames them to do so, I cannot argue its effectiveness.

I know all this, and I know that many—nay, most—of those who head into the wilderness are never heard of again. They achieve glory and honour in fighting the elements and the great foes, but all that remains of them now is a shattered spear or rusted arrow-head amongst a circle of stones.

But I speak none of this to the others. Despite our homelands being shattered, they are eager and believe they will be the stuff of legends. I look across the barren wilderness and our meagre supplies, and I hope that they are right.

In late 2012 I had a depressive episode. This is well documented; I wrote about it on-line, and I even gave a talk at OSCON. My thought processes during that time were broken and cyclical; cognitively I knew that people were great, but emotionally I found myself intensely disliking them. As someone who’s long derived joy and energy from those around me, I seemed to spend all my energy arguing with the emotional part of myself that people were great… and yet it wouldn’t listen. The situation was exhausting, and I didn’t get anywhere.

Eventually, I struck a deal. I would admit that perhaps people aren’t as great as I once thought, and that emotional monkey-brain would quieten down and let me think again. It worked, and I’d joke with my role-playing friends I recovered by taking a point in misanthropy.

Open source software is great. You don’t have to worry about the owner deciding to discontinue it, because someone else can always take over. If there’s a bug that really annoys you—or a feature you really want—you can add it. If you’re concerned about what the software might be doing, you can open it up and take a look. And even if you don’t have the skills or inclination to do all these things, other people will.

While I’ve always known open source software is great, I’m increasingly starting to appreciate that open source developers are also great. Many people in open source not only have a tremendous amount of experience with software, but also community management. They’ve seen a lot of the same problems arise many times, and so they have a good idea on how to get code, and people, to work together productively.