Jim blogged about the PHP credits list, and so I took a look. I was amazed to notice that of all the people listed, I know at least half of them, and have met most of the others. I’ve been very lucky to be in the right place at the right time, and meet some amazing people, and get associated with a pretty amazing organization, and by extension, a bunch of others.

In the early days, when the term Open Source wasn’t quite as well known as it is now, I managed to meet a significant number of the folks responsible for Perl, and become friends with several of them. A few years later I started spending more time with Apache than with Perl, and that’s developed into speaking opportunities, books, interesting projects – but most importantly and lastingly, a bunch of friends.

Every now and then, I get a glimpse of just how lucky I’ve been over the last ten years, and the truly astonishing opportunities that have been available to me by virtue just being in the right place, and being willing to volunteer a little of my time.

I’ve been less involved for the last year, since there’s somewhere that my attention has needed to be focused. I’m gradually getting back into spending time on Apache things, but it’s given me some time to think about where I want to spend the few cycles that I have, and I expect that my involvement will be a little different from what it’s been in the past.

But time will tell.