Culture of Open Source

This has been on my mind a lot lately. With my friends being laid off and seeing what they are going through in their searching for a job, and where my company, Novell, becoming a player in the Linux/Open Source world. Then Steve Jobs comes out with the latest Apple announcement that Mac OS X Tiger is going to run on Intel platforms. I see that move a necessity to compete in an area that includes Linux and Open Source stuff.

So I was driving back from a meeting taking Pastor Dean home and we're talking about this culture of open source. I'm talking to him about Pixar, Disney, Weta Workshop and the like and how they are starting to realize they do not want to be software developers, but rather they are artists making their product, so rather than continue making proprietary software to render animation, they are getting involved in FilmGIMP and contributing to the open source community and concentrating on their core values of making movie magic.

Well, Dean came up with it...are you ready...this puts it all together for me.

God is open source.

Yep, that's it. Now I get it and understand why I am so excited about this "culture of open source" that I want to foster and develop at RCC. Four words that convey so much meaning. Too many churches have run around for years and years saying God is proprietary. You must do things OUR way to worship God and be a part of what He's doing. Hooey! God IS open source. We all can have a relationship with Him in our own way, and He adapts to our own personal needs.

God is not proprietary, God is open source.

That one will stick for a while. Thanks, Dean.

Tom