There’s a very nice story in the News & Observer about John McLean, the recipient of this year’s Fedora Scholarship. This award, we hope, will allow John not only to advance his studies — computer science and religion at Duke University starting this fall — but also to maintain a presence in the free and open source software community.
It’s our feeling in Fedora that focusing on growing a community of contributors creates the highest amount of influence on future audience for free software. Basically, by nurturing the people who will be movers, shakers, and taste-makers in their peer groups, we can help generate fertile ground for FOSS. One of the ways we do that is by encouraging young people who have shown an interest and an aptitude for open source development practices, through the Scholarship program. John’s a worthy recipient and I wanted to take the opportunity once again to commend him and recognize his efforts and exceptional attitude of teamwork, learning through doing, and giving back to the community around him.