What would you say?

So, this weekend, I went to a friend's wedding in New Jersey. Saw that white stuff on the ground ("snow"). Jersey is not at all what I thought it'd be: we were in the hinterlands of Jersey. Don't even get me started on the goofy roadway system in Jersey - 40 minutes to get somewhere, 20 minutes to get back. Lovely.

Anyhow, during the course of conversation at the dinner table at reception after the wedding, one of the natural topics is, "What do you do?"

It's not like I didn't know this question was coming. Yes, I'm a Ph.D. student at UC Irvine. These people, not being dullards, then asked "What are you researching?" So, I proceeded to answer along the lines of "everytime you go to a web site - like Amazon, ESPN, etc., the odds are that 60% of the time, the other end will be using software that I helped write." That worked for the most part.

But, how do we explain the concept of open source? "Yah, I work on software and we give it away for free. We're not socialists, I swear!" Which is even more impressive - or not - when you are talking to Economic majors from University of Chicago like I was.

So, in typical open source fashion, I'd love to know how others respond to the question, "What do you do?" Do you even mention open source? Can you make us not sound like a bunch of communist hippies? And as a bonus, how do you make the fact that 60%+ of the world uses this software sound impressive without getting overly technical.

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