Open Source #786
They just don't get it
Why comparing open source against proprietary standards is self defeating
I feel an urge to have my 2c again. I was reading an interesting article on Lloyd's blog. For my less techie readers it might be necessary to point out that Lloyd is one of the geeks at WordPress. The article was OK. But the comments were fascinating. Two strands of thought by people who are kind-of-contemplating-open-source-but-need-an-excuse-to not get- started-just-yet struck me as worthy of opposing.
One is that the right framework to approach the issue is to see it as an *alternative* to well known proprietary software. Well that is OK as far as it goes. But if the recruit asks the question *does this open source software do EXACTLY what my expensive legacy proprietary software does? * then the answer is no. Why should it? Answer that. How can it be identical and better at the same time? How could it build on and improve the underlying applications when those applications are themselves built on uncertain foundations? What is it that is so special about yourself that you not only need to write letters and stuff but you absolutely insist on writing them the same way as you always did?
The second idea that folk who have not experienced open source are fond of is that open source is kind of maturing slowly and that one day - sometime in the far future - it will be suitable for them. When it has *matured*. What they really believe is that open source software is written by bearded amateur geeks wearing Birkenstocks. Some how I think these people are simply incapable of absorbing the notion that anything that is free could already be be better NOW than something that collectively they are spending bucketfuls of cash on annually. That misperception may be a function of capitalism. It may be a by product of a certain notion that something free is quaintly *Un American*. It is also crap.
Get this guys. Our software rocks. It rocks now. Yes. Today. It is better than yours. It is faster. It is cleaner. It integrates. It is easy to use. It is secure. It upgrades. It is supported. It improves. It is cheap. :) We are not involved in your interminable hardware upgrades, viruses and legacy OS issues. In short - you are missing out. Big time. If your software was better than ours we would be using that. But we are not. Why is that ? My linux 64 bit install came with 844 applications built in and nearly 19,000 others on demand. Why should I shell out one solitary dollar to buy all your bloat? In our office the admin wallahs have recently *upgraded* to Vista. It sucks. And to send 10 lines of text they now email xml files all over the place. Consequently - slightly unrelated - the Exchange mail server crashed. What is it all about? Americans like to think the market is king. But if the product is free then what is king? Quality, choice and interoperability. Those are the kings now. You guys need to get out more.
I might mention in passing that I work at one of the leading digital marketing agencies in the UK. I have - by far - the best computer - and the cheapest - in the whole place. I use - open source software entirely and exclusively. And so far not one person has been able to identify a single operation of any significance which I can't carry out. Far from it. But I do stuff in spades that they can not do. So answer this: Who is the guy with the hot software? Me? Or them ?