Penza, 22 April 2016. PenzaNews. Open source software provides an IT professional a great opportunity to realize himself, said the general director of Postgres Professional Oleg Bartunov in his speech at the 8th interregional software developers conference “Secon” held in Penza on Friday, April 22.

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“People mostly understand what open source is, but they do not realize what it may give them in their lives. A typical path for an IT professional is to gratudate from a collage or a university, leave for Moscow or St. Petersburg, or even abroad, and get hired by a nice big company,” he pointed out.

However, very few manage to achieve success in big cities and large companies, as IT professionals there more often than not become “small cogs” controlled by managers, Oleg Bartunov added.

At the same time, according to the expert, working in open source grants independence and freedom.

To back up his statement, he briefed the audience on the milestones in his life – from growing in a small town, becoming a professional astronomer and beginning his work with big data arrays, to entering the world of open-source development.

Oleg Bartunov placed particular emphasis in his speech on the role of community, which not only creates a high-quality product through joint effort, but also allows a beginner IT professional to gain unique experience and become a true expert in the field.

An open-source community can quickly react to the users’ needs and market demands through influencing project development directly, he pointed out.

Discussing the reasons why IT professionals typically strive to leave their homes for big cities, he suggested that they are mainly driven by the wish to realize themselves, as many think that only the capital has interesting projects and companies with decent jobs.

“However, in reality that is not true. There is not need to go to Moscow or St. Peterburg, no need to work for Yandex or Mail.Ru,” he said, causing the audience to react first with laughter, then with a round of rousing applause.

While the above statement is mostly a jest, it is still a certain truth, Oleg Bartunov added.

“A programmer must learn how to realize himself. What does it mean? That means he must create a project used by people. Students must learn how to do it – how to realize themselves – in their hometowns. Open source gives them this opportunity. You do not need to leave your town for that,” he stressed.

He also suggested that open source provides an opportunity to “make an unorthodox move in the Russian software field.”

“It is very important for us in Russia to let our youth gain their first experience by getting in touch with this great source of knowledge that does not depend on any politics,” the general director of Postgres International pointed out.

As PenzaNews agency reported earlier, the 8th interregional software developers conference “Secon” is held at the Lermontov Penza regional library. The IT professionals are invited to take part in 10 sections: five for parallel lectures, one for workshops, one for roundtable discussions and three for barcamps.

The event brought together over 700 experts in the IT field.

The conference is organized by Secon software developers association, with the support by the Penza region Center of Cluster Development.

The main sponsors of “Secon-2016” are Bank Kuznetsky and Vygrom Media.