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I try to write something at least once a week relative to open source software (OSS). But I’m not finding anything interesting, thought-provoking, comment-causing, or sticky (which has something to do with how many of you read this post) this week.

Maybe this says more than all my “2007 statistics” about the maturity of the OSS movement. Or maybe it’s because Europe is just finishing up a bunch of long weekends and the U.S. is coming up on one.

Whichever, when in doubt, return to first principles, which for me is the concept of open choice being more important than open source. I can philosophize about the difference between the two philosophies again or simply point you to the latest statements of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) founder Nicholas Negroponte. In announcing that governments will now have their choice between Windows and Linux on the low-cost, low power laptops designed for educational purposes in third world countries, he said it is really about the kids, not the development community. This caused a few anti-open-choice developers of the OLPC educational platform called Sugar (not to be confused with the open source CRM product) to leave the project. But that’s a demonstration of choice as well.

Also, when in doubt about what to write about, look around for a subject you’ve written accurately about before so you can say “I told you so.” Avoid the 100-something posts where you were clueless.

If anyone else has a nominee for a more important open source subject during the week of May 12-19, drop me an email or post a comment.

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

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