Hi all! First off, let me tell you that I had and have no intention of jumping into this debate, though I've been quietly watching it since the thread started. Second, let me tell you that I'm pro-OSS but not anti-Microsoft and that's not abnormal... many won't admit it if you do a "+1" voting here but I bet there are quite a few people here who take a balanced view of both proprietary and open source software. What works, works.
But something happened this morning related to this thread, that I want to share with you... just a small interaction that set me thinking and I guess it might do the same to you. I was telling my dad on the phone about this debate about Microsoft in LinuxAsia. My dad is a chartered accountant who calls a spade a spade, he uses both proprietary and open source software, he "knows" about open source software, but not to the depth of analysing every word in every license and interpreting the terminology and stuff... let's say he has a commoner's view of the whole thing. With his basic knowledge he asked me something, a profound question which I now throw open to you all to answer "to yourself" (since I agree with Sankarshan that it *is* time to close this long-drawn and unfruitful discussion)... "Isn't open source about being 'open', isn't it about a free market, isn't is about giving everybody a chance, isn't it about higher talent and ideals winning over lower ones, isn't it about people making their own 'choices', then what is wrong in Microsoft participating? By trying to shut Microsoft away from the Linux world, aren't you shutting competition away, and in a way playing at their own 'closed' game? To the best of my understanding of 'openness' as a word (and not as any hi-fi tech term), if one wants to fight Microsoft, the right way is to stand right next to them and prove you are better! Put up a stall right next to theirs and say, 'Hey, here, our products are placed on a level playing field, next to each others', now you judge for yourself, aren't the OSS offerings as good as Microsoft's?'" Makes sense in an extremely earthy way, doesn't it?! Cheers, Janani -------------------------------- Janani Vikram Gopalakrishnan http://gjanani.googlepages.com -------------------------------- _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
