individual cases

Mohammed Sameer

• pharmacology student
• deeply interested in computers
• several attempts to become a programmer before GNU/Linux
• had very limited access to source code or any source of experience, most was toy scripts, his early attempts all had no mentors, users or collegues.
• discovered GNU/Linux and got hooked quickly
• began trying to become a GNU/Linux programmer
• Arabeyes presented an immediate oppertunity to do useful work and not just toy projects
• we had no decent arabic text editors
• GTK+2 betas released with Arabic support, udit released as a very simple hack to satisfy a need for a temorary period until someone else does a proper job
• quickly gaining users with demands and reports
• easy access to previous experiecne and knowledge, cooperation from GTK developers themselves made it easy to gain knowledge quickly an to learn by doing
• search for more creative approaches and features
• katoob being adopted by arabeyes, learning how to fit within a team, how to look at grander scale
• katoob taken to new places, very inovative and competitive features, learned how to seek the unique requirments of his audience (the arab user)
• katoob translated to several languages, some users contribute.
• experience gained helped in doing tests, patches and generaly helping the cause of arabization
• community experience helped find a purpose and goal in life, plus earned respect of peers.
• variety of users taught new lessons not just in programming
• now working professionaly as an admin with frequent need for his programming skills
• study combined to present new oppertunities, help with ain shams pharmacetical computing system

FOSS allowed Mohammed Sammer the oppertunity to learn, not just from references but directly from others experience, it gave him peers, mentors, and discples all at once.

it also allowed him to be creative, and for the fruits of his creativity to be appreciated and rendered useful to many, it allwed him to gain status through his honest work all while making more friends and having fun.

Islam Met3eb

• medical student
• strong interest in computers
• always tried to build things without particularly being interested in programming.
• found out about GNU/Linux
• was building a custom server for a college lan and experimental website
• no existing distro satisfied him completly
• in the course of looking for the perfect distro found out about livecds and loved the idea
• was interested in finding out how the system worked and how liveCDs in particular functioned
• began making his own distro based on the LFS document, and by dissecting knoppix (in true medical student fashion)
• distro perfectly fitting his taste and running the server
• found the local community welcoming and very supportive, which inspired him to keep going and to start thinking of others benefit
• project taking shape as providing an alternative desktop that fits egyptians needs and runs on modest hardware to fit egyptians pockets
• getting some feedback and ideas and help in both developing the distro, in distributing it and orgaizing the project
• interaction with the developer community of the various little projects he included
• the involvment on an international scale made him realise how small and connected the world is, and how all are equal and all can learn and should continue to learn.
• his project lead to testing arabic support in many packages and to start of work on arabizing them.
• learning new things everyday, exploring new uses, new systems, and exploring new skills, a bit of programming form here, abit of artwork there, abit of webmastering here etc

Islam again gained alot from the stored knowledge in the community, his ability to do something useful and unique was a satisfying experience.

he explored many avenues of skills and knowledge, and most important of all the community interaction which gave him fertile environment and a cause or a bigger goal.

Mostafa Hussein

• Medical student
• interested in technology, science and culture in general
• found out GNU/Linux loved its reliability and became an avid user
• was mildly interested in programming just to understand more about the world around
• began learning a simple language python
• python was very useful for performing repetitive tasks, doing things that are not typicaly possible or very unique to his own usge patterns
• the local community directed him to how to start the first steps
• the communty also provided lots of examples, lessons, and scripts
• mostafa ended up releasing software to the public after only one month

apart from the knowledge mostafa gained, he managed to make the time he spent on his very personal tasks useful to others instead of being wasted on a one time task.

the important thing is he was able to truely own and cntrol the technology not just in a legal or economical sense, but also in a very technical sense, the very design of the system allows any user who is willing to spend a month to build new things and understand the intimate details of the system.

mostafa is not interested in being anything but a medical researcher, but his new found ability gives him a better oppertunity to choose andutilise software and computer technology in his life, and may even allow him to do some scripts and programs to help in his research one day.