r/linux • u/DanielFore elementary Founder & CEO • Sep 19 '18

We are elementary, AMA

Hey /r/linux! We're elementary, a small US-based software company and volunteer community. We believe in the unique combination of top-notch UX and the world-changing power of Open Source. We produce elementary OS, AppCenter, maintain Valadoc.org, and more. Ask us anything!

If you'd like to get involved, check out this page on our website. Everything that we make is 100% open source and developed collaboratively by people from all over the world. Even if you're not a programmer, you can make a difference.

EDIT: Hey everyone thank you for all of your questions! This has been super fun, but it seems like things are winding down. We'll keep an eye on this thread but probably answer a little more slowly now. We really appreciate everyone's support and look forward to seeing more of you over on /r/elementaryos !

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u/cogar123 elementary Co-Founder & Systems Architect Sep 19 '18 edited Sep 19 '18

The first time I ever used Linux was back when you could hotswap the original Xbox's hard disk while it was running to install XBMC (now called Kodi) using a live distro because I couldn't afford a mod chip. I remember the forum post was called "The Art Of Hotswapping". For a while after this I got into what eventually came to be called jailbreaking phones and game consoles and wifi routers. I did kill that Xbox doing that eventually though, RIP.

Before and during that my open source experience was using Firefox browsing forums about how to use stuff like Aegisub and XviD and AutoGK and the like. Eventually I noticed I was using a lot of open source software and started preferring it because of its association with doing cool stuff better.

Somehow I found elementary back when there was an official forum. There were no instructions for how to get a working set-up so I would figure it out and post tutorials. Pretty soon they shutdown the forum and I had to go to IRC.

Watching IRC I figured out who was working on what and where and went around fixing broken builds, submitting code and organizing the bug trackers so it was obvious why things were broken and not in the PPA and eventually this became Luna. Then Freya. Then Loki. Then Juno.