Free and open source software (FOSS) advocates need to stop obsessing about Microsoft. But, just as clearly, many of them won't, if the reactions I received when I blogged about the subject are any indication. Never mind that FOSS is a necessary fixture in modern business, or has evolved defenses that ensure its survival -- or that paranoia and juvenile gestures like talking about "Micro$oft" and "Windoze" only hurt the cause. For many, hatred of Microsoft is a way of life, and they'd be lost without it.
Things were different ten years ago, when the community was a small group of hobbyists unknown to most computer users. Back then, the community was fragile, and might have been stamped out, had any of its enemies noticed it. Nor could you run entirely on FOSS without giving up functionality that users of proprietary software took for granted.
|