From Venezuela to Colombia: Miguel's open source journey

by Eclipse Foundation staff
For Miguel Useche, open source has never been just about technology. Growing up in Venezuela, he discovered a global community that would shape his career, allow him to travel around the world, and help him build a new life in Colombia. His story shows how open source can create opportunities that extend far beyond software development.
Miguel Useche grew up in San Cristóbal, a city in western Venezuela near the Colombian border. Although relatively small, San Cristóbal has a strong academic presence, with several universities and an active technology community.
His interest in computers began around the age of ten or eleven, when he watched the 1995 film Hackers. Until then, he had mainly associated computers with video games and office applications. The popular crime film opened his eyes to an entirely different world – with Hollywood living up to its reputation as the ‘dream factory.’
Fascinated by what computers could do, he began teaching himself programming around the year 2000. His father, who worked at a university, brought home computer science books and learning materials. Miguel started with BASIC before moving on to web development.
As a passionate skateboarder, one of his first projects was a website for the local skateboarding community. The website, https://puroskate.com, is still online today.
Around the same time, Miguel discovered Linux while exploring online communities. To his surprise, he found that people in his hometown were already using and promoting the operating system. He attended a local Linux community gathering and soon became actively involved.
His interest in programming eventually led him to study software engineering at a university in Venezuela. There, he encountered professors who were themselves active in open source communities and regularly organised events.
These experiences reinforced something he had discovered early on: software development was not just about writing code. It was also about connecting with people who shared his interests.
One of Miguel’s most memorable experiences from his early days with Linux was discovering that people around the world were collaborating on software projects: During a Linux course at university, he met someone who ran an internet café and introduced him to online discussion channels. This is how Miguel began communicating with developers in other countries.
For a young developer in Venezuela in the early 2000s, this was extraordinary. He remembers e-meeting someone in Norway who was interested in exactly the same technology.
Even more fascinating was learning how developers who had never met in person could create software together, communicating primarily through email and online channels.
“This is more than just installing the software. It’s also like a big community behind that,” he recalls thinking.
At first, Miguel did not feel sufficiently confident in his programming skills to contribute code. Instead, he began translating software into Spanish, correcting mistakes, and helping organise community events.
He also helped promote open source projects, including Debian and Ubuntu, through installation events and, later, social media.
For Miguel, translation was particularly important. English proficiency remains a barrier for many developers and users in Venezuela and Colombia. Although he had exposed himself to the language from childhood, e.g. by watching cartoons in English, he recognised that many others did not have the same opportunity. By translating software and documentation, he could make open source technologies accessible to more people. He also learnt that translation alone was not always enough. Localisation matters because the same Spanish words can have different meanings in different Latin American countries.
These early contributions demonstrated that there were many ways to participate in open source, even without advanced programming skills.
Around 2010, a member of the Mozilla community in Colombia visited San Cristóbal and encouraged local developers to establish a Mozilla community in Venezuela. Miguel and several friends took up the idea and founded Mozilla Venezuela.
This marked an important milestone in his open source journey. Over the following years, he became increasingly involved in the Mozilla ecosystem and eventually joined the Mozilla Tech Speakers program, which supported community members in speaking at conferences.
Through Mozilla, Miguel travelled to fourteen countries, attending community gatherings and speaking about open source, open technologies and web development. These experiences allowed him to meet developers from different cultures, exchange knowledge, and form lasting friendships. Some of those became so close that Miguel is now the godfather of a child whose father he met through open source.
For him, these personal connections are just as important as the professional opportunities. “More than the software, it’s about the people behind it,” he says.
Open source also played a decisive role in Miguel’s professional development.While studying software engineering, he chose to work on an open source-related university project involving phpPgAdmin, a web-based administration tool for PostgreSQL. Reading and understanding the source code of a real application transformed his understanding of software development. Concepts that had seemed abstract in university lectures suddenly made sense when he saw how experienced developers applied them in practice.
Open source also helped Miguel find his first freelance customer. After publishing an open source WordPress plugin, he was contacted by someone who wanted a modification. The initial request turned into additional paid work and eventually a long-term professional relationship. Miguel went on to work with that customer for approximately eight years.
His experience demonstrates how contributing to open source can serve as a practical demonstration of skills, helping developers establish