I’ve been a strong open source advocate even since I discovered the movement for myself over 10 years ago, going by my online nickname “ringmaster”. People often scoff at how I can give my time up for free projects, but I see the benefit differently.

Last year, I quit my job to go out on my own, using open source as a tool, and all evidence says it’s worked out pretty well. Last October, I found myself in Melbourne, Australia, working as a contractor on a reasonably high profile project, with people I’ve met through my connections in open source.

While driving me home from an evening at my co-worker Amar’s home, my friend told me something strange. He said, “While I was alone in the kitchen with Amar, he squee’ed like a little girl - ‘I can’t believe Ringmaster is in my living room!’”

I was incredulous. Why would anyone be so excited that I had visited his home? That’s when my friend told me Amar’s story.

Amar and his family were living in Iraq during the most recent US military action there. It was a hard situation, with violence everywhere, and the threat of death from simply walking down the wrong street or saying an off word to the wrong person.

One day, while Amar was driving to work, an IED exploded nearby, resulting in a decapitated head rolling off the hood of his car. This was the final straw that led him to move his family out of Iraq.

At this time, Jordan was turning a blind eye to immigrants, but it wasn’t explicitly granting them asylum. Amar and his family became illegal aliens in a country that would deport him back to a war zone. His small apartment had a slow internet hookup, and while he waited for the war to end, he got by.

Sadly, this didn’t last long. Police raided his home, threatening him with automatic weapons, looking for the drug dealers that had moved in upstairs. A huge bungle on their part allowed the drug dealers to escape, and the police’s behavior gave Amar the distinct impression that the dealers would blame him for the raid! Between being illegal and deported from Jordan and targeted for retribution by angry drug dealers, Amar was at wit’s end with no options, with a desperate need to move his family somewhere safe – immediately.

A few years ago, some friends and I started the Habari Project, an open source effort to write some blog software like WordPress with some higher purposes. One of Habari’s major goals is to be educational; to teach not just code, but how to document and design software, and work collaboratively.

Amar was one of the early contributors to the project, and used Habari to learn pretty much everything he knows about PHP. Through Habari, he built many strong, personal connections, in spite of being remote to pretty much everyone. And in the early morning after the police raid, he found himself frantically explaining what happened to a friend of ours in the project via IRC.

Based solely on his work with Habari, our friend was able to arrange a job for Amar at the place he now works in Melbourne. And Amar was able to move his family safely there the next day.

This was possible because I helped start this little open source blogging project.

When I look at the open source movement and what it’s done for me, I don’t think much about the freedom people typically espouse. I think about the human benefit. I think about Amar’s story and the nameless others that open source has helped and in this, I find the effort worthwhile.