Blonging for Freedom/ A giant leap for a man

Blonging for Freedom ? ~ ⁂ *

This is Alexandre Oliva's personal blog, that does not necessarily represent the opinions held by FSFLA, FSF, AdaCore or any other organization the author may be or may have been associated with, or even by myself, as of now or ever.

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This week, I resigned from the GNU Tools Engineer position I've held at Red Hat since February, 2000. lieN gnortsmrA might boldly put it as "A giant leap for a man, but an insignificant step for humankind."

If only I'd quit over an imposition of non-Free Software on me, over the increasingly clouded business, over some great new opportunity to make a difference, it might have ended up being more than a negligible blip within the Free Software community, nevermind the grand scheme of things. Alas, it was just rotten office politics on a global scale, after a misunderstanding blown way out of proportion, that resulted in an unbearable situation for me.

Funny, I've just had my first anniversary at AdaCore, my other GNU Tools Engineer part-time position, and I was enjoying so much the notion of resting from one job while working on the other... :-(

Anyway, it is time to mourn the end of a relationship that has been with me through the best and the worst times in my life so far. Back when I joined Cygnus Solutions, it had just been acquired by Red Hat. As I leave, IBM has just acquired Red Hat. Quite a coincidence, but marking the completion of a cycle feels kind of fitting.

Here's my wish of continued success to this company that has treated me so well in the beginning and the end, and may it change IBM even more than expected by both companies. Hey, it's my wish ;-)

May the remaining Free Software activists in there keep the flame alive. It's no longer as welcoming an environment for hardcore Free Software hackers as it was before, but there's still a huge amount of freedom in there, that I know I'm going to miss. It has been quite an amazing ride.

Hats off, and so blong...