FOSS: time to stop the navel-gazing

By Sam Varghese
Friday, 26 September 2008 04:00

Opinion and Analysis

Discussions about free and open source software can arouse strong emotions. That's something I've known for many years but one often tends to forget these things in the rush of daily life.
It comes back to you in a flash when someone reacts in a totally unbalanced way to something you've written or said, a totally harmless comment that should be absolutely inoffensive when considered logically.

But logic rarely comes into the picture when people feel that you are criticising the free and open source community and anything associated with it.

Earlier this week, I wrote about the decision taken by the parent company of Ubuntu, Canonical, to sell common multimedia codecs instead of providing them as it has done so far. In logical terms, if one has to buy something to provide a distribution with basic functionality then the distribution has become commercial.

And I don't know of anyone who would consider a Linux distribution complete unless he or she can use it to watch a DVD, or play an MP3 or a Windows media file.

Probably it was the use of the word "virginity" as a synonym for "innocence" that annoyed some readers and sent them into a rage. There are plenty of fundamentalists lurking in the FOSS community, that's something I've always known.

Whatever the reason, I've rarely had such a barrage of hate mail - one gentleman wanted me dismissed, another began to discuss my appearance ("you look very angry") and the outpoturings of others indicated that they had taken things personally.

(To the guy who talked about my appearance, don't worry, I'm on the lookout for a polka-dot bikini so I can have a new picture taken and put up on the iTWire site - I'm sure that will please you, sir.)

It's funny - and sometimes a bit frightening - when you realise that an inanimate thing like software can engender such powerful emotions.

Some would take this to be a good thing - and the argument would be that it indicates that people care about FOSS. I think that's a convenient way of blinding ourselves to the fact that something is seriously wrong with our priorities when we get so agitated over software - and quite often remain unmoved by other things which we should care about.

There is a vast army of people out there who think that those who write about Linux and other free and open source software should also be a vast cheering squad for FOSS.