Thursday, June 12, 2008

Open source vs. proprietary? Turn the question around!

The failed argumentation for open source

Often you will find open source advocates trying to tell you all the reasons why you should use open source software: Access to the source, open data standards and cost are often mentioned. Sadly, while these arguments are actually very important – especially the ones relating to freedom of your data and freedom of choice – they are often not appreciated by the wider public. The significance of these issues usually only reveals itself after some exposure to the matter, some discussion and some thinking.

For example, the non-technical public will care very little about access to the source, not realising what degree of freedom this guarantees to them, even if they never look at the source themselves. Same with open data standards. Why change or even care if all the world seems to use the same 'standard' of some proprietary software package, right? The real issue of vendor lock-in is not usually on people's mind.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

outsourcing software development has been instrumental in the bridging of the distances between the IT worlds of the different countries and bringing them together in the platform of the global IT world.