Things for Which I'm Grateful

Today was Thanksgiving in America, and for many Americans it's a time to reflect on our blessings and things for which we are grateful. As I pondered I realized many of mine had Linux flavor. So I thought I'd share some Linux and open source software things that have enriched my life so much.

First, I'm grateful for the Finnish student that decided to write his own kernel and released it as free and open source for everyone. By extension, I'm grateful for all the folks who hammer out the greatest kernel in the world day in and day out.

Secondly, I'm grateful for my friends here at OStatic.com, LinuxJournal.com, my site tuxmachines.org, LinuxToday.com, and all the others that supported, read, helped, and employed me. Included are all those that take the time to post and blog about their projects or experiences.

Third, I'm grateful for all the Linux distribution developers that have not only provided an operating system that have kept my machines humming, but also allowed me to find my niche. Some of my favorites are MEPIS, Sabayon, PCLOS, Mint, Mandriva (who first released me from Windows), Debian (for my server), and openSUSE.

Next, I'm grateful for all those application developers that help me get work done while running Linux. At the top of that list is Aaron Seigo and the gang at KDE. I've used KDE for over 10 years now and KDE had a big hand in freeing me from Windows. Others are Liferea, TVtime, Firefox, GIMP, OpenOffice.org, Drupal, Apache, GNU tools, and so many more.

I'm grateful for the folks at Frictional Games and all the others that release their games for Linux as well as those that port Window games to Linux.

Finally, I'm grateful for my personal friends who listened to me cry, made me laugh, gave me hardware, and was just there for me.

We have so much to be grateful for in the US, but friends and family are the most important. However for me, Linux falls not too far behind.