[FOSS] How does one respond to this line of questioning?

Thomas Charron twaffle at gmail.com
Thu Apr 7 21:57:29 EDT 2011


On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 9:26 PM, Bruce Labitt
<bruce.labitt at myfairpoint.net> wrote:
> Had an interesting conversation this evening.  A snipped
> version basically was:
>
> op: You like to use a lot of Open Source Software don't
> you?  Don't you know it is not 'standard' here?
>
> me: Hmm.  What part of free, efficient and fast don't you
> care for?
>
> op: (no answer)
>
> How do list members respond to this line of questioning?
> (Yes the conversation went on, but it was merely an
> unfruitful elaboration of my answer.)

  Well, that guy walked away thinking you where a prick, if you really
put it in THAT language.  :-D

  Open Source is 'different'  It isn't better in any way that can be
definitively proven.  If it finds that you are able to do things
faster and easier, then great.  Help it make inroads to MAKE it
included as a standard.

> I don't need to be sold on FOSS.  In general, I find FOSS to
> be incredibly useful.  I use it whenever I can.  It isn't
> always *the best* solution, but most (nearly all) times it
> is more than good enough.  (If appropriate, I make an
> attempt to help the 'community'.)
>
> Why do many large organizations tend to resist FOSS?  Discuss.

  Honestly, the largest reason is attitude of the users.  People using
OSS software 'outside the bounds' tend to leave software behind that
others have to figure out how it works.  A Visual Studio monkey can
generally pick up any other monkeys stuff, and get up to speed on it.

  A perl guy walking into an environment where the guy liked Python,
who took over from a guy who liked bash scripts..  Weeeeeeeeeeelllll.
It doesn't go over to well.

-- 
-- Thomas



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