I homed in on this post as something interesting when I saw you say: With those questions in mind...it never ceases to surprise me that people, every day, are still using MS-Windows and other closed-source solutions. It's morally wrong, and it's technically dangerous. I'm going to table the "technically dangerous" bit, but I think you've hit on something very important when you define the use of closed-source software (specifically Windows) as "morally wrong."
Upon consideration, I think FOSS users can be thought of as generally belonging to at least one of three camps. Placing oneself in one of these groups does not exclude membership in the other two, and some people (including you, I think) are a member of all three. Economic FOSS users are those people and companies who use open-source software because they believe doing so makes financial sense, delivers a competitive advantage, or both . Members of this group can be users (IT departments, individuals, etc) or developers, and the corporate-backed efforts of companies like IBM or Sun would also fall into this category.
Next we have what I'm calling the Philosophers. Users in this group may or may not think FOSS is the best economic decision, but they put enough of a premium on the ideas, goals, and overall position of FOSS to use it even in situations where it may not be the best financial choice. A simple example of this group would be an individual who buys an OEM system with Vista pre-installed. Instead of using Vista, he deletes the OS and loads a Linux distro of his choice, even if the distro in question requires substantial configuration tweaking in order to run properly on his hardware. Put another way, this is the person who is willing to sacrifice a "reasonable" amount of time, energy, and in some cases, functionality, in order to have an FOSS-based system.
Finally, there are the Moralists. For this group, FOSS solutions aren't just a preference, they are a component of moral living. Some members of this group will view the situation more practically than others, and may accept the use of closed-source code as a necessary evil, but for the more "devout" members, anything less than absolute devotion represents ideologically unacceptable compromise. Richard Stallman is, I think, an excellent example of an extreme Moralist.
Having defined my terms, I'll actually say something. ;)
After reading your original post and considering the issue, I think that there's a definite tension between Economic and Moralist developers/users that actually ends up benefiting the closed source (i.e. Microsoft and Apple) camp. I throw Apple in here, by the way, because while the OS X kernel may be open-source, Apple's overall design methodology is, in my opinion, as closed-source as it gets.
Microsoft solutions don't ask any uncomfortable questions (with the possible exception of "Where the FUCK is your license key, user BitTorrent79?!") and they don't attempt to turn one's computing preferences into a referendum on personal morality. People all over the 'Net debate Vista vs. XP, but no one asks whether one solution is spiritually or ideologically purer than the other. Even when we bring Apple into the picture, such debates are muted, and tend to be anchored in economic terms (MS is a monopoly!) rather than moral ones.
no subject
I homed in on this post as something interesting when I saw you say: With those questions in mind...it never ceases to surprise me that people, every day, are still using MS-Windows and other closed-source solutions. It's morally wrong, and it's technically dangerous. I'm going to table the "technically dangerous" bit, but I think you've hit on something very important when you define the use of closed-source software (specifically Windows) as "morally wrong."
Upon consideration, I think FOSS users can be thought of as generally belonging to at least one of three camps. Placing oneself in one of these groups does not exclude membership in the other two, and some people (including you, I think) are a member of all three. Economic FOSS users are those people and companies who use open-source software because they believe doing so makes financial sense, delivers a competitive advantage, or both . Members of this group can be users (IT departments, individuals, etc) or developers, and the corporate-backed efforts of companies like IBM or Sun would also fall into this category.
Next we have what I'm calling the Philosophers. Users in this group may or may not think FOSS is the best economic decision, but they put enough of a premium on the ideas, goals, and overall position of FOSS to use it even in situations where it may not be the best financial choice. A simple example of this group would be an individual who buys an OEM system with Vista pre-installed. Instead of using Vista, he deletes the OS and loads a Linux distro of his choice, even if the distro in question requires substantial configuration tweaking in order to run properly on his hardware. Put another way, this is the person who is willing to sacrifice a "reasonable" amount of time, energy, and in some cases, functionality, in order to have an FOSS-based system.
Finally, there are the Moralists. For this group, FOSS solutions aren't just a preference, they are a component of moral living. Some members of this group will view the situation more practically than others, and may accept the use of closed-source code as a necessary evil, but for the more "devout" members, anything less than absolute devotion represents ideologically unacceptable compromise. Richard Stallman is, I think, an excellent example of an extreme Moralist.
Having defined my terms, I'll actually say something. ;)
After reading your original post and considering the issue, I think that there's a definite tension between Economic and Moralist developers/users that actually ends up benefiting the closed source (i.e. Microsoft and Apple) camp. I throw Apple in here, by the way, because while the OS X kernel may be open-source, Apple's overall design methodology is, in my opinion, as closed-source as it gets.
Microsoft solutions don't ask any uncomfortable questions (with the possible exception of "Where the FUCK is your license key, user BitTorrent79?!") and they don't attempt to turn one's computing preferences into a referendum on personal morality. People all over the 'Net debate Vista vs. XP, but no one asks whether one solution is spiritually or ideologically purer than the other. Even when we bring Apple into the picture, such debates are muted, and tend to be anchored in economic terms (MS is a monopoly!) rather than moral ones.