From the outside, open source often looks like a technical concept. A license here, a repository there, a few lines of source code, publicly visible. But look closer and you’ll see: it’s about much more than software. It’s about freedom. And about sharing.

I’m not a developer in the classic sense. I’ve never overseen major projects or designed complex software architectures. But over the years I’ve written many small scripts, sometimes in PHP, sometimes in Python or Perl. I’ve built websites with WordPress, written HTML and CSS, tried things out and discarded them. Never aiming for perfection, but always wanting to create something that works — for me, and sometimes for others.

That’s the beauty of open source. It doesn’t thrive on perfection, but on participation. On the desire to contribute. It’s a space where people can learn from one another without big barriers. A place where you don’t hoard knowledge, but share it. And sometimes, if things go well, you make someone’s day or help them along without even knowing it.

Open source also means: nobody has to start from scratch. What others have created can be viewed, understood, changed, improved. And if you build something of your own, you can open it up so others can pick up where you left off. Usually there’s only one simple condition: the freedom you had should remain. The freedom to learn. The freedom to contribute, even without an official mandate. The freedom not to lock up your code, but to make it accessible.

In a world where information is often traded like a commodity, this is a quiet form of resistance. It’s about trust. About community. And about the conviction that we get further together when we don’t keep everything to ourselves.

Open source isn’t a technology. It’s an attitude. One that shows collaboration works even without formalities. Sometimes a few lines of code are enough. Sometimes the willingness to share is.

If you’d like to see what I’ve worked on, you can find my GitHub account at: https://github.com/maik-wi

The text was automatically translated from German into English. The German quotations were also translated in sense.