As a freshman at UC Berkeley in California, Harihareswara first learned about open source technology from fellow classmates and was immediately attracted to its ideology of sharing and altruism.
“Another appeal of open source is when you see a problem, you can fix it,” she adds, looking off again into the back corner of the restaurant. “And how many times in our lives have we seen a problem where we were prevented from fixing it by nonsense?” She faces me again, “In open source you can fix the problem. I love that empowerment.”
Harihareswara says many people voluntarily contribute to open source platforms to do just that: gain the satisfaction of fixing something they saw as broken. Some volunteer coders, Harihareswara adds, also contribute to gain recognition and affirmation of their skills.