Yesterday was the Jewish Holy Day of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, a day of remembrance, repentance, confession and fasting. It is unique in that it is almost universally observed, even by the most secular of Jews for whom it might be the only day of the year that they attend a service.
Central to Yom Kippur is the Al Chet prayer where we are asked to consider the sins we have committed intentionally or unintentionally, what are our sins of commission and our sins of omission and what have we done inadvertently by doing nothing at all.
There is nothing new about Open Source. We might like to think that it is a concept introduced in the last 50 years but in fact the origins of sharing knowledge date back to some of the oldest recordings of written works.
Doing some reading recently I came across the following text translated from a compilation of the ethical teachings and maxims (Pirkei Avot) of the Rabbis (jewish teachers) written down almost 2000 years ago.
We live in a blame culture. We are always looking for someone to blame whenever a situation occurs. We are in control of so much of our lives and yet instead of taking control and changing what we can change we expect someone else to do it for us. The reality is that it isn't someone else's fault - it is mine. And when I say mine I mean yours.
Every time we face an issue instead of looking at someone else to blame we should be looking at ourselves and saying - it's all my fault.
