[luau] OpenSourceAdvocates

[Warren Togami]

On Tue, 2002-10-08 at 23:05, Jimen Ching wrote:
> >
> >I disagree, if we advocated for the banning of proprietary software, we
> >would be hypocrites to be advocates of free "choice".
> 
> I doubt those people are against free choice.  Having choice and having
> source code are orthogonal.

The proponents of banning proprietary software say they are for "free
choice".  At first I agreed with them, but then I read stuff from high
profile people like Bruce Perens and Tim Oreilly and I no longer agree
this is the best way to advocate Open Source. (continued below)

> 
> >Bruce Perens launched "Sincere Choice" initiative as an alternative to
> >Microsoft's "Software Choice" and these "Ban Proprietary Software"
> >legislations in California and several foreign countries.
> >
> >"We seek to provide a fair market in which Proprietary and Open Source
> >software can compete solely on their merits."
> 
> Are you and Bruce Perens saying free/open source software do not compete
> solely on their own merits?

In advocating for a law that OUTLAWS proprietary software, we do not
compete solely on merit.

> 
> I believe we are talking about government purchased software.  No one is
> preventing you (personally) from buying proprietary software.  But if the
> government is going to spend my tax dollars, I want to make sure they
> spend it on good software.

I totally agree here.  They should spend it on "good software". 
Unfortunately Open Source Software and Free Software is not always
technically superior.  We shouldn't make it law and force them to use
technically inferior software.  That is not "free choice".

What areas are OSS sorely lacking?
* Configuration Interfaces - lets face it, people don't like to edit
text files.
* Well integrated desktop interface
* Easy software installation (not just stuff made available in some
package or auto-installed tarball, that is way too hard)
*  Management Tools - Don't tell me with a straight face that we have
anything better than Microsoft SQL Enterprise Manager.  (Although I
suspect TOra comes close, I haven't had a chance to use it much.)
* Overall learning curve.  It is harder to learn most of our stuff. 
* Documentation - on the average our documentation stinks.
* probably a lot more...

> Unless I am mistaken, UH gets some of its funding from the government.
> Perhaps the government should reduce UH funding so they can pay Microsoft
> more money.  And why should we stop there, we should have another demo day
> and advocate that people consider proprietary solutions.  Why should we
> limit the choices of our audience?  It's not like they are spending my tax
> dollars.
> 
> Sorry for the heavy sarcasm.  I just can't believe I am reading this email
> on a mailing list that is supposedly advocating free/open source software.
> 

I myself BELIEVE in Open Source and Free Software.  I use it whenever
possible even though I know it would be easier to do a certain job using
some proprietary software, even if I own that proprietary software. 
However, we cannot convince people on purely idealism.  Technical merit
and price are the only things that will convince people to stop using
proprietary software.

Warren