I’ve been writing about Linux and open source for more than two decades because nobody else was telling the story in the way I wanted to read it.
Most Linux writing follows predictable patterns: software comparisons and proclamations that some tool is “way better than Y and totally free” (though it rarely is). What gets lost in that noise is the engineering logic behind decisions and the human side of open source. As an engineer, I find myself drawn to the why behind the what. Linux and open source reshape entire industries. Everyone loves to hate on Hadoop now, but it evolved into cloud computing and taught us the value of separating storage from compute. Without Linux driving cost and throughput efficiency on servers, the technology world we take for granted today would look dramatically different.
There is always something remarkable happening in Linux and open source. Not the overnight kind. The kind where decades of incremental progress finally reach a tipping point.
This website exists because I wanted to document that moments. And the hundred other moments that made it worth remembering.
I’ve been using Linux since Ubuntu 4.10 Warty Warthog in October 2004. Back then, getting a graphics card to work was an achievement worth celebrating. Sound that didn’t crackle was a luxury. Wi-Fi was a pipe dream.
Today, I plug in hardware, and it works. I install a distribution, and it looks polished. I run software, and it doesn’t crash (usually).
We’ve come impossibly far. Sometimes I forget that. Writing on this website reminds me.
Today, Linux and open source have evolved, as I wanted when I started. For me, it took more than two decades to get here.
Let’s document it properly.
Can Artuc
The Architect
c [at] canartuc.com
