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[NOTE: As a rule, most of my open source blog postings are intentionally pretty light. I strive to give you something between the People column of the daily newspaper and Entertainment Nightly when it comes to open source. If you want something with more depth, look to my Feature articles over on the lefthand side of the ebizQ web site. But the following post is an exception to my rule:]

A few months ago the open source software (OSS) blogosphere got tied up in knots over a Discover article that claims OSS inhibits innovation. The comments on the article were the predictable rantings of the very small OSS fringe when anything negative about open source is released. I have seen the nerdy non-sequitur venom and total falsehoods some techie open source bloggers write in response to my own postings on IT investment research. I have called out anyone (that I was aware of) that lied about me on a blog and I have yet to find one of them that doesn’t backpedal into his or her hole.

The fact that these typically anonymous hatemongers troll the Internet and attack an investment-research posting like mine, words that have nothing to do with technology per se but only comment on the effect one technology position or another might have on shareholder value, illustrates a real problem for the OSS community. Typically, in between the profanity and the hate, their comments go into obtuse arcane technical points that only a nerd could love.

In the end, the OSS fringe wants to take our choices away from us. If we lose open choice, we will all suffer because of the fixations of this small group of OSS proponents against Microsoft (see sites such as BadVista.org, Documentfreedomday.org, and so forth). The good news is that most of the sincere open source community that I meet daily to work on this blog and my feature articles has a live and let live attitude about Microsoft. The vast majority of OSS runs on Windows.

Now there may be a revolt brewing against this non-sequitur venom against normal people in general and against Microsoft users in general. A hint of it can be seen in a back-and-forth battle in progress down-under entitled Ignore the open source hot heads, CIOs told. The jist of the Aussie article is that the vitriolic ad-hominem attacks against anyone that says any thing remotely critical of open source--or in favor of Microsoft--is actually harming the OSS culture. It must be because the Aussies have always had to take a different perspective on everything in the world, but the Aussies are right on this subject.

Posted by dennisb in OSS Culture |Digg This|Add to del.icio.us

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Posted by: Swashbuckler at March 24, 2008 09:32 AM | Permalink