As this wild and wacky Wall Street week comes to a close, I wanted to give a nod to one of the best columns on open source software I've ever read. It's Bruce Byfield's piece on Datamation.com, "Twelve Myths about Free and Open Source Software."
The column is particularly relevant to me. I write (and edit stories) about open source software, but I've tried very little of it. I do love my AVG software protection, my Firefox, and my Divx media player. I'm sure I've used other open source tools without even knowing they were open source.
But I'm too chicken to go the full Unbuntu route. I don't know if "chicken" is the right word, but I know I just want my stuff to work, and I don't want to go full-geek. I really don't want to mess with my operating system. (The late great Peter Drucker said that people don't care about technology. They care about what technology can do for them. That's me to a "T.").
Meanwhile, many of my friends are loading Linux like madmen and loving it. A guy I used to work with, Larry Cafiero, is even trying to get the whole town of Felton, California, to use Linux. (See his story, "Linux devotee tries to spread the word" in the San Jose Mercury News.)
But I've held back. That's why I need columns like Byfields. See if the debunking of these 12 myths gets you sorted out, too:
1) If software costs nothing, it's no good
2) FOSS is inferior to proprietary software
3) FOSS is piracy (or at least encourages it)
4) FOSS has no support
5) FOSS is only for developers
6) Using FOSS means working from the command line
7) FOSS is only good for small projects
8) FOSS is unable to develop games
9) Having the code freely available makes it less secure than proprietary code
10) FOSS is unable to innovate
11) Since the license places restrictions on the users, FOSS isn't really free
12) FOSS is all about price
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