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Why we use free and open source software at Yola

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At Yola, using and creating free and open source software (FOSS) has been part of our engineering DNA since we started on this crazy adventure seven years ago (to the month!).

The importance (and reliance) that we place on open source software is evident in one of our technology architecture goals:

Open source solutions are preferable to proprietary ones.

Unsurprisingly, many, if not all of our engineers (note to self: conduct an open source witch-hunt later) are open source software contributors. Large and essential pieces of our technology stacks (personal and for-profit) rely on many of the major FOSS projects (Apache, MySQL, PHP, Python, Java, GNU/Linux, Memcached).

This is our first attempt to consciously sling some love back into the community of generous people that have made our lifestyles possible.

And so that the giants our children stand on will already have their shoulders poking into the technological stratosphere (#technologicalsingularity).

I volunteered (actually, Stacey made me…) to break the ice, lead the charge and mix the metaphors (and drinks), because I have some level of competence in the perpetuation of cliches and the construction of meta-mountains from molehills.

Consider me the unpaid opening act for the imminent prose and code performances of the rest of our talented and well-groomed engineering team at Yola.

As my reward, I get to show off some of the GitHub projects that we’re proudest of:

You can find the rest of our GitHub public projects here. Please try them out, use them and help us improve them.

We also maintain some interesting personal projects:

•    Thomas Welfly, Director of Engineering:

•    Michael Joseph, Services Team Lead:

•    Justin Blake, Developer:

Don’t be strangers.

Michael

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