How to explain open source to the in-laws
Reflecting back over the holiday break, I would have to say that overall, it was pretty mellow. (This is not always a given when family gatherings are part of the equation.) This year, it was Christmas with the in-laws, and it was the first time we'd had a lengthy visit with them since I started working with the oVirt project. All my in-laws knew was that I had a new job and I was traveling a lot. This, naturally, led to the inevitable question: what is it that I actually do?
This is a tricky question to answer to those not in the IT community. If I say to a group of my peers, "I'm an open source community liaison/manager/whatever," I can be reasonably sure they're going to at least partially understand. They may still be off in their presumptions ("you're one of those hippies?"), but at least we're in the ballpark of understanding.
With those not in IT, not only are we not in the same ballpark, but there's not even a mutual understanding of the rules of the game being played.


