Experiences in FOSS
summary
Starts by reverse‑engineered PRS‑500 USB protocol and Sony LRF format to make an ebook workflow on Linux, grew that tool into Calibre and released cross‑platform builds; Calibre now lists ~3 million active users, ~500k LOC, ~50k commits, 200+ contributors and runs on donations. Builds a second project, Kitty: GPU‑accelerated terminal, ~100k LOC, ~10k commits, automates packaging with custom tooling (bypi), answers 50+ user messages a day, excludes DRM removal from official plugins, and reports no legal takedowns.
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chapters (13)
- 0:00Introduction
- 0:35Defining Open Source
- 1:38Overview of Projects
- 2:45First Coding Project
- 4:08Creating Calibre
- 7:57Full-Time Open Source
- 9:49Community and Motivation
- 13:00Corporate Interactions
- 15:00Future of Ebooks
- 16:06Personal Background
- 18:01Dealing with Criticism
- 19:26Developing Kitty Terminal
- 22:11Importance of Automation
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