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

[Thomas Charron]

On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 1:44 PM, Jon 'maddog' Hall <maddog at li.org> wrote:
> Thomas,
>>But to the original posters comments, the right solution isn't, by
>>default, 'FOSS'.
> I do not know what question you are trying to answer, perhaps
> op: You like to use a lot of Open Source Software don't
> you?  Don't you know it is not 'standard' here?

  How to answer that question.  The answer to, 'Why are you using it'
isn't.  'Well, it's FREE!  Don't you like free?  Why wouldn;t you like
free?'

  The answer is, I used this solution becouse I've found that by using
this tool, I can implement it faster.  And (insert language here)
provides many tools, such as CPAN, etc, allowing me to extend it
pretty quickly.  How would you have done it?  Let's compare notes.

>>How do list members respond to this line of questioning?
>
> But the question I am trying to answer, also from the original poster
> was:
>
>>>Why do many large organizations tend to resist FOSS?  Discuss.
>
> Since the second question was the one right before his signature, that
> was the question I was trying to answer.

  But the title was, 'How to you answer the question'.  THAT is my
point.  They guys response had NOTHING to do with 'large organizations
resisting'.  One, 'We typically dont do it that way' turns into, 'I'M
BEING REPRESSED!'  It is a pet peeve of mine when people make the
assumption that your either WITH open source, or against it.

> Now, if he were to insist on the op supporting those "non-standard
> tools", I could see an issue, as the op has to now balance two sets of
> tools to do the same thing.  But if he maintains his own tool set, then
> the op should not care what tools he uses.

  And this is back to my point.  The assumption of the original
question, as stated, was that there was some resistance, when the
conversation he quoted, depending on tone, could very well have been
used to enlighten, instead of a condesending, 'If your not in the IN
crowd, your obviously an idiot'.

>>Which 99.99% of users *never do*.
> Perhaps not, but their VARs and integrators might change it before it
> gets to the end user.  On the other hand:
> 100% of closed-source users can NEVER change the source code.

  Which means that it's only *really* a problem for 1 out of every 10,000 users.

> Unless the contractor could convince me, the owner, that the end product
> was more efficient for me, which in the case of this house he probably
> could not, than I would fire that contractor.

  More then likely, that contractor, in this case, had gone ahead and
done it that way, as you didn't tell him not to.  So I guess your
basically saying Bruce should be fired.  :-D  (Yes, that was tounge in
cheek).

>>The use of FOSS doesn't resolve that issue.
> No, but it ties back to the issue that I chose to answer.

  And the crux is, there where actually two questions.  The first was
from the other person, the second, from Bruce.  I feel there is a
disconnect between the two, and that the second question is jumping to
a conclusion.  Remember, Bruce actually said he was besides himself,
and annoyed by the mere inference of the question.

-- 
-- Thomas