There was a brief, shining era in America when people actually built careers at single companies. It was possible to work at the same company, or at least in the same industry, your whole life, enjoy some nice benefits, and retire with a pension. Good luck finding anything like that now. The new rule of the modern economy is whatever happens to us, it's all our fault. But all is not woe, for FOSS fuels the modern economy, and that is where the growth and opportunities are.

A brief digression: we see "open source" all the time, but not "free software" so much. I like to emphasize "free software" because it means . We need every little bit of freedom we can glom in these modern times.

FOSS powers large distributed science and research projects such as . It powers the Internet and the World Wide Web. It powers Google, Amazon, , and nearly all of the world's top 500 supercomputers. Android, the runaway smartphone, tablet, and e-reader success, is based on the Linux kernel. The cloud, which is inevitably settling over us like a great damp fog bank is FOSS-powered, as are the two best Web browsers that we use to interface with the cloud, Firefox and Chromium. FOSS powers cars, televisions, cameras, settop entertainment boxes, agricultural machinery, high-end movie animation, industrial production lines, surveillance systems, and ever so much more. It truly is everywhere, from the tiniest embedded devices to the largest supercomputers.