I've catching up on issues of Technology Review (those bastards sent me another one) and I noticed a piece on how Linux is hurting Microsoft. For the most part, it is the same arguments that most Linux people have heard for a long time. But, it did talk a lot about why people like Open Source. I liked this paragraph: (enough to share)

This because for all its flaws, the open-source model has powerful advantages. The deepest and also most interesting of these advantages is that, to put it grossly, open source takes the bullshit out of software. It severely limits the possibility of proprietary "lock-in" -- where users become hostage to the software vendors whose products they buy -- and therefore eliminates incentives for vendors to employ the many tricks they traditionally use on each other and on their computers. The transparency inherent in the open-source model also limits secrecy and makes it harder to avoid accountability for shoddy work. People write code differently when they know the world is looking at it. Similarly, software companies behave differently when they know that customers who don't like a product can fix it themselves or switch to another provider. On the available evidence, it appears that the secrecy and maneuvering associated with the traditional proprietary software business generate enormous costs, inefficiencies, and resentment. Presented with an alternative, many people will leap at it. -- "How Linux Could Overthrow Microsoft", Charles Ferguson, Technology Review Vol. 108 No. 6, p. 66

The issues also deals with the ideas of intellectual property with none other than Lawrence Lessig writing a piece. Richard Epstein does a good job of calling him on several points including making more of an emotional argument than a legal one. But, both are a good read.


posted Aug 4, 2005 | permanent link