How it's made - OBS

As all human beings I am curious by nature, I always liked to see how things are made and listening to stories of what lead people in doing interesting stuff. When I was in Nuremberg for the Marketing hackathon, Jos (Poortvliet) told us that there would be that meeting with the OBS guys and have a talk about everything around it so that we could wright a series of articles in order to promote it. After a few sentences I understood that we would start from the day that OBS was conceived until the present day. For me this was a conversation I had to be part of.

The day after Jos told us about the meeting we were gathered in a room with the guys that created the OBS magic. Some of you might say that I become excessive putting the word magic next to OBS but be patient to read the upcoming OBS series of articles and judge me then.

We gathered in the room and we started recording with our laptops and our mobiles so that we would be sure that we will not lose any part of this conversation for the articles we will prepare. 

We started by asking typical stuff like 'How it started?' and 'What created the need for a tool like that?' but the answers, along with the flame on the eyes of people answering was something that it is very difficult to describe in written language, filled the room with energy. 

What originally started as an interview so that we would gather information to write some articles became a six people group telling a story that was closer to the atmosphere of a fairy-tale than anything else. Soon there was that flow that questions were unnecessary and everything was coming out naturally.

Listening to those peoples stories and seeing the passion in their eyes made me envy them for not being a part of it. Yes OBS is a great project and there are a lot of interesting stuff you can do with it but at that one hour that I was in that room this was the last thing that I cared about and the last think on my mind. It was all about passionate people who love Free Software, who love giving stuff back to the community and who love every little step while doing it. It makes you realize that what most people see as letters and numbers and variables in a part of code other people see a part of themselves and a way to individual freedom. Someone once told me that the basic difference between a free software programmer and a proprietory software programmer is that the guys in free software most of the time see their code more as a child and less than some lines of code. I could understand this but I had never really felt it. This hour I spent in the 'Rome' room at SUSE offices in Nuremberg with those guys taught me more things about Free Software Programming than all the conferences and all the talks I had been part so far. Feel Free to suppose that I am making this thing bigger that it really was, for me it was just an experience I had to share with those who will get it.