Should open source boycott Microsoft?

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I do everything on a case-by-case basis

If it's good software and there's good vendor support I'll use it. If it's bad software or there's poor vendor support I won't.

You can have proprietary software that is good and well supported by its maker. You can have F/OSS software that is bad or has poor developer support. I tend to use F/OSS because it tends to have the better software with better support, but I don't boycott anything that's proprietary (or from MS) just because it's proprietary (or from MS).

All proprietary means is that the developer retains the source code, but in doing so they also retain all the responsibility of maintenance. As long as they take that responsibility seriously there's no reason to boycott proprietary software, It's when they don't take responsibility that you have to avoid using it. And I wouldn't call that a "boycott" necessarily, just good business sense. Right now my Windows computers are Apple software free for that reason. I'm not boycotting Apple, but it doesn't make sense for me to keep their poor software on my computers when there are better alternatives.

Posted by: Michael Kelly   Posted on: 01/05/09 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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