Open Source Program Office
Open Sourcing the Wisconsin Idea
Perry Govier started out on the road of programming by building websites for his friends’ bands, his dreams of being a roadie with technology solely being a hobby. Today, he is a programming instructor at the Madison Area Technical College. Govier specializes in the front end of development, his work focusing on the visual aspects of design and programming.
Govier soon embraced open source into his career after installing Linux onto his computer, rebelling against the Microsoft-dense technology community he was surrounded by. A more active open source community can be exciting in many new ways, and Govier wanted to be a part of it.
“The tech ecosystem was so monolithic, just having alternatives that I didn’t even know were available was suddenly so exciting,” Govier said.
Govier began working for Ionic — an open-source UI toolkit — after using it for many years. When he moved back to Madison from Minneapolis, he reached out to the team of freshly graduated college students in hopes of seeing if they knew of any open-source companies hiring that could help him out. Just his luck, Ionic themselves were hiring. This began Govier’s seven-year journey at Ionic.
“That was a blast starting from a tiny startup that had this kind of surprising meteoric growth. When I joined, they were trying to cope with overnight becoming very, very popular,” Govier said. “That whole deal of trying to figure out how to make money off of an open-source product that you’re giving away was a fun adventure.”
With a startup like Ionic, the payoff can be empowering for those working on them. While working with Ionic, Govier was able to assist with developing this technology to help others begin to build and launch apps and join the space.
Govier eventually switched career paths and began teaching at MATC. Govier believes one of the most important aspects to include in an open-source project is documentation. Being able to show other people how to use the code, but also to be able to look back on it is vital when developing a project.
Open-source projects can last as long as someone continues to maintain them, unlike closed source if the company just decides to stop providing the program. Documentation can allow both contributors and maintainers to see what has been worked on, the train of thought for development and continue to keep the program going for long-term usage.
“If you start to really dig around on GitHub, you can find tons of just really brilliant software, and some of the best projects nobody’s using because nobody knows how to use it and nobody’s heard of it before,” Govier said. “Having that documentation reduces the barrier for other people to start trying out that software and to know how, what it is, how it works.”
Govier was one of the many who were able to program open-source projects as their career. These projects can start as a cool new idea but may be subject to a short shelf life. As Govier calls it, the industry can tend to have ‘shiny ball syndrome’, and having a concrete and constant thing for practitioners can allow them to stay focused on these projects.
Career or hobby, open source can welcome a broad community of people, regardless of their skill level with coding.
“I think the best thing that open source communities provide is that sense of community where people can collaborate and learn things really quick, especially when you’re new to the industry, just learning the language of how people talk,” Govier said.
Open source is widely community-driven. Without the maintainers and contributors who continue to update these projects, there would be no programs to help the rest of the community. Open-source software is a pertinent part of research and data science that can be a more customary tool for everyone.
“Just general awareness of knowing that open source exists and that it plays a very important role in the tech environment, and just increasing that overall awareness and understanding,” Govier said.