Guadec Day 2: In pursuit of critical mass

Today I was reminded of this quote by Jane Goodall:

If everyone could think a little bit about small choices they make every day: What do you eat, does it result in animal cruelty? What do you wear, how was it made, does it damage the environment? When people start thinking like that they do change. They do make changes. And when more and more people think like that we get critical mass.

– Jane Goodall

In the conversation I was having we were discussing the presence of design in open-source. There have always been some great designers in open-source. It is time to push for a critical mass of people who know how to care about user experience and together with other talented developers and designers can deliver applications which offer an outstanding standard of experience which combines great design and great implementation.

I wrote a post a little while ago about why open source matters.

Open source may not be the answer to all the world’s woes but it provides a framework for a freedom to collaborate on solving problems that affect all of us.

(Is it weird to quote myself?)

Firefox raised the standard for browsing. We need more applications which empower people to do what they want and need to do and do it brilliantly.

To create a critical mass of people who will adopt our open-source platforms we need to start with a gentle revolution of our own. Only then will open-source receive the attention from the masses which it deserves.

I like GUADEC.