After working from home for almost two years, I am starting to feel that it is time to meet up a bit more in person. Covid does not quite seem to agree and keeps throwing a spanner in the works. I should be grateful that it is still possible to work remotely more or less unhindered.
It is the technology for remote meetings, tools for collaborating on documents remotely and planning projects in collaboration tools that make this possible, and we all know which tools are usually used. Something at least as important but less visible is the code in the background that makes all this new stuff possible. Open source runs the entire infrastructure of the web and we all depend on it. One of the most important components was created and is maintained by a Swede: curl, created by Daniel Stenberg. curl is a tool and a library for transferring data that is used almost everywhere. Maintaining open source software often means a lot of work and little financial reward. Daniel is in a fairly good position with good support, but I still choose to give this year’s Christmas gift of SEK 10,000 to curl to reward all the hard work. Do spare a thought for all the heroes working to keep the internet we all depend on running.
This picture illustrates the situation well, even though it is about a different project.
The comic Dependency on xkcd.com
Previous recipients of the Christmas gift are ”Källkritik, fake news och faktagranskning” (Source criticism, fake news and fact-checking) 2020, Open Knowledge Sweden 2019, Näthatsgranskaren (a Swedish organisation reporting online hate) 2018, Wikimedia Sweden 2017 and Musikhjälpen (a Swedish charity fundraising event) in Örebro 2016.
You can also donate to curl on Open Collective.
Merry Christmas!