In a world that moves faster every day, finding an anchor—a sense of direction—is not always easy. For me, open source has been that anchor, a guiding compass that has shaped not only my career but my philosophy toward technology and collaboration.
My name is Francesco Bianco, and this is the story of how open source transformed my life, led me to create a community called Javanile, and inspired me to contribute to various projects, always driven by a single, powerful belief: quality comes through openness and sharing.
The Early Days: Planting the Seeds
Every journey has a beginning. My passion for programming started early with QBasic on my first 386SX computer. As a chess enthusiast, I initially focused on developing chess software before entering the professional world around 2008.
However, my true introduction to open source came in Palermo—a city rich in culture and values. It was there that I attended my first Linux User Group (LUG) meetings and hackathons. Though we never formally met, I frequented the same places as Salvatore Sanfilippo, known widely as Antirez, the creator of Redis. That environment profoundly shaped my understanding of open source communities and collaborative development.
With numerous ideas bubbling in my mind, I channeled my enthusiasm into creating a local, independent organization called Javanile—a name combining “Java” and “Nile” (the river), reflecting both my technical background and my Mediterranean heritage as a Sicilian.
Building Javanile: More Than Just a Community
Javanile evolved into an experimental laboratory for my open source initiatives. Everything I developed for clients was first tested and refined openly through Javanile. The organization’s significance grew when Docker recognized it as a participant in their open source program.
A pivotal moment came in August 2016 when Javanile shifted its focus toward DevOps. This strategic pivot defined our primary direction moving forward. Each month, we improve or release new open source development tools with the ambitious goal of enhancing and accelerating software development processes.
This mission continuously motivates us to produce better work. I’m conscious that without the ambition to distribute my work through open source channels, it wouldn’t have reached its current quality level. Had I remained isolated in my workspace, Javanile wouldn’t exist today, and I wouldn’t have achieved my current professional standing.
Open Source as a Compass
Throughout this journey, one truth has remained constant: open source is more than a methodology; it’s a mindset.
For me, open source serves as a motivational engine. The prospect of gaining recognition as a contributor guides me like a compass to produce increasingly more software of progressively higher quality.
It teaches humility—accepting that someone, somewhere, might improve your work. It teaches patience—collaboration is slower than working alone, but the results are infinitely richer. It teaches courage—putting your code, your ideas, and sometimes your mistakes out into the world, for everyone to see.
In a way, working in open source is like planting trees. You may not enjoy the full shade of your work immediately, but you know that it will grow, benefit others, and contribute to a better ecosystem for everyone.
Expanding Horizons: Contributing Beyond Javanile
While Javanile remains my primary focus, I’ve expanded my contributions to other significant projects. I’m now a maintainer of BPKG, a formidable package manager. For this opportunity, I must thank the other maintainers who welcomed me and provided invaluable mentorship.
The Maintainer’s Challenge
Being a maintainer comes with its unique set of challenges. The most difficult aspect is determining where to invest limited resources. Often, you have minimal time but numerous issues or pull requests to address. The dilemma becomes whether to develop something new and useful or to organize and perform code reviews.
I consider myself a hands-on maintainer who prefers to continue writing code for my projects rather than just managing them. This means that when I dedicate myself to something, I inevitably give it importance and time.
Supporting Maintainers: A Call to Contributors
One way contributors can better support maintainers is by avoiding premature pull requests. Many contributors expect their PR to be merged into a release before they can use it, which creates a paradox. Most licenses allow for distributing modified software, so taking ownership of your fork and distributing it is fundamental.
Only after establishing a usage history for your fork does it make sense to submit a contributive PR. Pull requests with minor changes like punctuation adjustments are less valuable. We should be thinking in terms of “leap PRs” that make significant improvements.
Security in Open Source
In terms of security practices, I’ve implemented a banner indicating which email to use for reporting vulnerabilities. However, I’m working toward implementing a toolchain based on Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) to enhance our security posture.
The Impact of AI on Open Source
I believe that soon we’ll have substantial portions of open source code written by AI. We must absolutely strengthen quality gates and continuous integration processes to increase the level of quality control. My answer is to raise the bar even higher.
Looking Forward
Today, my commitment to open source is stronger than ever. Through Javanile and through the many ways we contribute every day, we are building not just better software, but a better culture.
As I look to the future, I see endless opportunities: new technologies to explore, new contributors to welcome, new ideas to turn into reality. The road ahead is long, and the work is never done—but that’s exactly what makes it beautiful.
Open source isn’t just a chapter of my story; it’s the entire narrative thread that ties everything together.
And if you are reading this, maybe it can be part of your story too.
Read stories shared by other maintainers.
This story was published under CC BY-SA by the author.