In a great post a few days ago, Jono asks why you are doing free software and reminds us to remember it. It’s quite easy to lose sight of our goals and motivations while working on the day-to-day tasks.
This reminds me of an interesting point made in the course I’m currently studying on Applying Our Co-operative Values and Principles. As well as our shared values and principles, each co-op should have a statement of its goals. For our co-op, that’s “to provide computer-related services…”. For the Co-operative Group, it’s currently “inspiring young people; tackling global poverty; and combatting climate change” – it’s a big co-op, so it has big goals.
But while goals are a shared commitment, your motivation for them is often a personal thing. Often it will be rooted in a negative, a dissatisfaction about how the world was before you started, then making that into an excitement about what you could do, the new possibilities that are opened up. I think you can see this a little in Jono’s motivation of “how excited they were at exploring their new system” and many of the comments there. They’re positives and often the silver lining around some cloud.
So, please, head over to Jono’s page and share your motivations. Then pop back to my site and tell me your goals (or how I’ve misinterpreted this 
) in a comment.
“Often it will be rooted in a negative, a dissatisfaction about how the world was before you started”
Most famously the grandaddy of the whole concept of Free Software as a movement, RMS himself.
I’m well aware of what drew me here. It’s experience in the UK corporate environment, where developers are the lowest-of-the-low. Open source is somewhere you can do great and fun things without a PHB on your back treating you as inferior because you’re not in a suit.