Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on March 17, 2003 11:11 PM
"I mean it's fairly plain to everyone there is a free-as-in-freedom software revolution happening, and I think most people can see the difference between the ideals that guide it and something like those 100% idealism-free IBM/Linux TV commercials."
Really? Ask your local Walmart employee about it sometime. After all, they're selling Lindows.
The free software movement may have an impact far beyond the actual software development world, but I would argue that the majority of the population has never even heard of it.
As for not giving the technologically unenlightened credit, I fully agree there. Ultimately, these are the people responsible for paying us so we can pay our bills, and they have the right to know, if they are so inclined, about lower cost alternatives to the expensive software.
At the same time, they need to be made aware of the fact that open-source and free software is sometimes not as feature-complete as commercial software and that it may cost them more to pay someone to support and develop the needed features, if it is necessary right away.
That's both the upside and the downside. Free software is not always necessarily cheaper in the end.
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Re:"open source" vs Open Source?
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on March 17, 2003 11:11 PMReally? Ask your local Walmart employee about it sometime. After all, they're selling Lindows.
The free software movement may have an impact far beyond the actual software development world, but I would argue that the majority of the population has never even heard of it.
As for not giving the technologically unenlightened credit, I fully agree there. Ultimately, these are the people responsible for paying us so we can pay our bills, and they have the right to know, if they are so inclined, about lower cost alternatives to the expensive software.
At the same time, they need to be made aware of the fact that open-source and free software is sometimes not as feature-complete as commercial software and that it may cost them more to pay someone to support and develop the needed features, if it is necessary right away.
That's both the upside and the downside. Free software is not always necessarily cheaper in the end.
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