Re: Shut Up With The Open Source Politics, OK?

Robin Green ([email protected]) wrote:
" On Thu, Oct 09, 2003 at 06:17:45PM -0400, Adam Kosmin wrote:
" > IMHO, The term "Open Source" is a dangerous one because it teaches its
" > followers all the wrong values.
" 
" I don't think that's what you really mean to say. There's nothing
" wrong per se with creating better software, or getting involved
" in a more fun development model. :) There's nothing wrong with
" those particular values.

No, I did mean to say that. That's why I typed it. The danger that the
OSS movement brings to the community is that it teaches decision makers
to value Low Cost and feature sets. Armed only with this appreciation,
decision makers tend to invest (in terms of dollars, resources, time,
etc) with the lowest bidder and are more apt to get sucked into
spoofs like Microsoft's Shared Source program because "Hey, I've got
access to the code!".

How can we expect our society to defend its freedom if it has no
appreciation for it? The OSS movement does nothing to educate its
community on the value of this freedom. Want proof? How about
Microsoft being invited to the eGovOS conference in Washington DC this
past March. Even better might be when Microsoft was presented with the
Open Source Product Excellence award for its SFU product at last year's
LinuxWorld event.

" 
" I support Free Software, but as a pragmatist - I also support using
" the best tool for the job (taking into account long-term costs and
" risks). Whether software is Free should be a factor to consider,
" but not a factor that overrides everything else. Some things are
" actually more important than free software - a statement with
" which I am certain RMS would concur.


The problem with the "right tool for the right job" stance is that it
simply does not reflect any values whatsoever. In fact, I'll just call
it a cop out that is most often used by people who either 1) don't
understand the issues, 2) don't care 3) or just feel helpless in their
ability to change things.

Adam

" -- 
" Robin
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