[TriLUG] Open Source Empowerment

Tanner Lovelace lovelace at wayfarer.org
Tue Nov 4 13:41:41 EST 2003


Ilan Volow wrote:
> <heresy>
> In a response that has nothing to do Novell/Suse et al but just with 
> some ideas that have been forming in my head about Open Source, I 
> recently came to the conclusion that Open Source only empowers those who 
> have the technical knowledge to make changes. For anyone who isn't a 
> programmer or a sysadmin, they are as powerless and unable to make 
> changes as they were with Microsoft. It only gets worse when you have a 
> situation where there are people who know how to fix things but don't 
> have the technical knowledge to do so, and there are people with the 
> technical know-how to make the fixes but who don't think there is a 
> problem and will in no way listen to the first group of people.
> </heresy>
> 
> Sorry for the off-topic rant; just had to get that off my chest.

Ilan,

I disagree here.  With Open Source you have the opportunity to teach
yourself what you need to do to fix whatever problem you have.  Or,
you can find someone else and pay them (or barter or persuade, if you
want) to do it for you.  You can't do this with MS at all.  That's
a huge difference.  You aren't locked into one vendor who probably
doesn't care that much about you.

Tanner
-- 
Tanner Lovelace | lovelace(at)wayfarer.org | http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
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