Open Source : An Open View Point

Article = None , Personal Opinion.

So, what is my opinion on open source ? On Good Olde Bill Gates making a buck on his operating system , and then these yahoo software writers coming along and mucking it all up by giving away an operating system, and word processors, and games , for free ? And their inferior "free" offering is pretty much immune to virii and other security violations while windows seems to attract them like flies, and bill gates vehemently refuses to fix the whole problem (active - x components) because thats how he makes his operating system do things other more responsible operating systems refuse to do , and thus can turn a profit because he can do stuff they can't do.

And catch virii like there's no tommorow.

Let me rephrase that.

My sister "gave" me a rather old and ancient lap top (she was supposed to give me my PDA back , not a cast off lap top that won't run anything but windows 3.1, but thats another issue entirely) and it works beautifully. On windows 3.1. And it has spreadsheets and power point like programs and and word processors and everything you could imagine.

So when was windows 3.1 again ? 1992 ? 16 years ago.

wow. So...what can my winxp machine do that windows 3.1 can't do ?

Hmmm... it plays some really nifty games. And ...

And ...

and ...

I'm thinking. Give me a moment. Don't rush me , ok ?

And ...

And ...

Hmmm... let me rephrase that. Windows 95, win98, winme , winxp ... so what did I get again for paying for windows four more times that windows 3.1 couldn't do ?

Hmmm....

Ok. Back to This open source business. Why do I think they should give the operating system away for free instead of making us pay for it over and over and over again ? And paying a mint for security software that doesn't do much except tell you you're operating system has been heavily damaged by that virus, reinstall ! Lose everything ! Start over ! ((I could have figured out I need to reinstall on my own without paying you 60$ thanks just the same)).

Because I believe in copyrights.

Because I believe that sooner or later, copyrights expire. And you get the work for free after that. Because I believe that making cherry flavoured tylonal is not sufficient reason to extend the copyright on tylonal another 17 years. I'll be happy to extend your copyright on the cherry flavoring but I want the basic formula from 17 years ago made free for all. Thats the way it works, thats the deal you cut with all those foriegn governments it's too late to change it now. You had your time to be soul supplier and turn a buck on your work. Time to poney up the stuff for free for everyone, as you agreed to.

And because I don't believe in predatory marketing practices.

I believe telling companies that if you put some other word processor on your computer (Word Perfect comes to mind) instead of Microsoft word we're not gonna let you put windows on it and so your business will go down the tubes and you'll go bankrupt.

Yes, I believe thats an evil thing.

I believe that when I run internet explorer , every time I sneeze my computer picks up a virus. But after two years of running alternatives (opera , and later fire fox) it hasn't caught a virus or "tool bar" even a single time, and Bill Gates moves mountains to make sure word of such things is properly smeared and no one beleives me when i mention it ... something is wrong there.

I believe thats an evil thing too.

I believe that when I worked as a programmer, and our main client upgraded their word processer to the latest microsoft office, and these ignorant users called us fools and insulted us because we didn't. So we were forced to not only upgrade to the new word processor, but a new operating system as well because it wouldn't run on the old one, and after all this time and effort and labor... not much had changed. We had no new abilities or features. And the printers didn't work on the new operating systems. But we had no choice or we'd lose the contract because we looked bad to these technological idiots that hired us for our expertise and then proceeded to totally ignore us.

I believe that also to be an evil thing.

I believe I bought a java compiler from Microsoft.

But I was wrong. I did not. I bought a J / J++ compiler. Which I thought was java. It looked like Java. It acted like Java. it seemed to understand the java programming language. And so (I thought) I could write code that would run properly on both the internet explorer , and on Netscape , the cheif competitor, with no problems.

But netscape was never able to properly run the code. It always came so close, and then messed up. Ran perfectly on Internet explorer. Guess netscape needs to get their act together , right ?

A year later I found out Micro$oft was getting sued for deliberately sabataging applications so that they would only run on IE and not run on netscape. A non standard java interperter that would weed out errors deliberately induced by their own compilers so they could happily sabatage anyone trying to make stuff that runs on both platforms.

Thats 150$ out of my pocket I got robbed of by good old Bill Gates, by the way.

I believe that if proprietory companies screw people over , lie cheat and steal without any restraint or moral scruples on the matter , well, you will pay the piper sooner or later. No one likes it much when you take money from their pocket and give them nothing in return. No one likes buying a product that you seem to promise faithfully will do what they want to do , and then be told SUCKER ! YOU DIDN'T READ THE FINE PRINT ! WE RIPPED YOU GOOD AND WE LOVE IT NOW THAT YOU'RE CRYING IN YOUR BEER AND YOUR MONEYS GONE AND WE'RE LAUGHING LAUGHING LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK !!!!

Yeah. No one much likes that.

Lets give open source a try for a while , shall we ?

Just for a change of pace , if nothing else.