Are You an Open Source Bigot?

As we have talked in class about openness, and especially as we have focused on the merits of open source movements and relating them to things like open government and open education, I have often reflected on the following article by Josh Coates: Are You an Open Source Bigot? Josh Coates is the founder and former-CEO of Mozy, and is currently working as the CEO of Instructure, an open source LMS competitor to Blackboard. I actually work at Instructure as an iOS Developer, and wish we used Instructure's Canvas in our class :/ But that's not the point of this post.

In the world of software, there are two main camps: open vs. proprietary. Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe are some of the big names in the proprietary software camp, while the biggest names in open source would have to be Linux and Apache. It's easy to hate the big guys raking in the money, and toute the merits of open source products because they usually come with a small to no pricetag, but the truth is they all have their merits. To simply cast out one camp or the other is foolish.

Josh talks about how he has interviewed countless software engineers, and one of his favorite questions is about which is best: FreeBSD, Windows, Solaris, or Linux? The answer according to Josh is that they all more or less equally suck. And he's absolutely right. In the end, every platform out there has its merits and its downfalls. Both proprietary and open source are right. So when we advocate only one right answer, and refuse to acknowledge the merits of others, we risk serious bigotry.

Josh's article is mostly directed towards the open source camp, which is why I think it is so relevant to our class. We are trying to think different, and since most of us grew up conforming to the society around us including the proprietary or closed methods of doing things, our immediate reaction to the call to think different is to cry for open source, open government, open education, open everything! In championing our various open causes, we look down on anything closed or proprietary, directly associating it with the man and all things evil. But this kind of exclusive thinking is dangerous. It's the kind of thing that has gotten a lot of people in trouble in history. As always, moderation is the best answer, taking in all the different camps into consideration and forming the best combination. When championing a cause for openness, remember the points Josh makes in his article and reflect: am I an open source bigot?

As we move forward in class trying to think different, remember that one of the greatest champions of that slogan is also one of the greatest advocates of proprietary software: Apple.