Free and Open Source Software

Note: This page was written quite some time ago, and does not entirely reflect my current views on this subject.

Over the years, I’ve come to feel very strongly about the necessity of free and open source software. Unlike many other hackers, however, I do not believe that such software should exist to the complete and utter exclusion of proprietary software. I feel, rather that a state of symbiosis exists between the two paradigms. It seems to me that either model, left on its own, tends to lead to complacency in certain areas.

For open source software, this applies most often to the realm of non-technical usability. Since open source software tends to be written by programmers with an immediate need, the software’s usability is often targeted simply to meet that need in whatever way seems most useful. This sometimes leads to immensely powerful software which is simply incomprehensible to non-technical users. Parallel offerings from proprietary vendors, while often not as powerful, nonetheless may make certain functionality more accessible to less technically inclined users. When these same users become programmers on open source projects, they bring higher standards of general usability to these projects, often thereby enriching the open source community.

Proprietary software, by contrast, tends to be more vulnerable to things like bloat, instability, and poor security. The existence of free alternatives forces proprietary software vendors to stay competitive, since only those products which are truly well-designed, well-produced, and well-supported (and well-marketed – which is still a bigger factor than it should be), can survive consumer choice.

I do believe, however, that proprietary software has grown to a level of prevalence which is disproportionate to what it should be, and that the current open source ‘revolution’ is simply the natural consumer backlash against the huge wave of vendors peddling junk software, that can’t be repaired or modified by the user, over the past few decades.

Please note that the above three paragraphs contain heavy amounts of generalization, and I do not mean them to apply generically to every situation. They are simply my own observations of what generally seems to be true, based on my limited experience.

Personally, I use nothing but free and open source software in my typical day-to-day work. This includes my operating system, my desktop environment, my web browser, my media player, and the dozens of other programs that I frequently use.

I do still keep Windows installations around for gaming purposes, but I stopped trusting Microsoft products for serious work years ago. I also like what Apple has been doing lately, but I dislike vendor lock-in (having been burned by it before), so I prefer to be running open software on open hardware.