Why I like FOSS

Today I would like to share with you a little bit about me and my interest so you may be able to better understand my positions on some hot tech topics. The first thing I want to share is my love of FOSS. First off let me start by explaining what “FOSS” is for those of you who don’t know. FOSS or Free and Open Source Software, is basically software that is freely created, shared and modified among it’s users and not owned exclusively by a company. Let me also say that while I am explaining why I like FOSS I don’t believe that FOSS is the end-all answer to all tech problems. That being said lets move on to why I like it.

I like open source for a few reasons, the most obvious is that it’s legally free to use as opposed to close-source software that you typically have to pay for to get the good stuff. But the main reason for me is the overall attitude of the developers, which is: Why are we doing (insert some unpractical, cool, geeky thing here)? Simple, because we can. You see in our world technology is only advanced if there is a market for it, regardless weather or not it works a 100 times better than the old way, if people won’t buy it, it won’t get developed. The problem here is that most people aren’t educated when it comes to technology and they make up the majority of the market. The web browser has been around for what? 15 years, and studies show that 90% of computer users (people who regularly use a computer) still don’t know what it is even though all of them use it almost every time they sit down at a computer. This explains why we are still dependent on fossil fuels, the tech has been here to make fully electric and clean cars and power plants, but because people don’t know any better they don’t demand it, and since there is no demand car manufacturers aren’t in any hurry to make alternatives. This brings me to my favorite part of open source software, which is that it is advanced daily, weather or not there is a demand because it’s developed by geeks for geeks and our attitude is that if it can be done, it will be done, regardless of it’s practicality or usefulness. This attitude of course doesn’t help much when your trying to get “normal” computer users to use the stuff, but I’m saving that can of worms for another blog post. The important thing here is I love open source software because it is made by people like me for people like me. 😀

Join me next time when I will be doing a pre-review on current netbook operating systems.

Joshua Powers