Technically absolutely nothing wrong with it! but on the other hand something seems not right. Now, don’t get confused or don’t get to the attack mode … this is not one of those “this one is better than the other one” kind of a post. I’m just writing based on a serious long discussion I had with a very good friend mine who is a 100% Open Source dude. One thing I really admire about him is he actually lives and breaths OSS, unlike some so called OOS folks who talks about it and run Windows in their machines.

We just met after a long time for a beer (many beers apparently) and started talking about stuff and this topic popped up. Even though both of us wanted to stop the topic several times I think the dense alcohol levels wanted to keep it going. Anyways … after a 3 hours we were still good old friends and we were glad all other friends enjoyed the friendly fight.

When you really look at the OSS space there are plenty of software applications most of the times mimicking software in the proprietary world. The list goes on … Microsoft Office vs Open Office, Windows vs Linux, Adobe Photoshop vs Gimp, Microsoft SQL vs MySQL etc. Even the small apps like WinZip, CuteFTP, WinAmp have OSS flavors. In a world where people look at saving cost, still over 90% of the computer users pay big $$$ and stick with proprietary software when there are countless number of OSS applications available free. Honestly that doesn’t sound right. If it is free and still people are not using it there must be something seriously wrong with it. I think a significant contributor for this situation is the support and usability.

Most of you who read this post are for sure capable of dealing with any technical challenge to get your broken computer up and running, but if you look at the average computer user out there he/she just worries about getting the work done using the computer. So when installation of applications, updating, upgrading and using is bit difficult .. the average user naturally turns to the easier options. I think that’s what has happened. Companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Apple etc have gone an extra mile on this by Innovating new ways where average user can comfortably work with a computer.

In the corporate world … big companies have better things to worry about than IT problems. They need IT to be a contributor for them to run their business better and more efficiently. In this area I think the technical support and services is the main driving factor. Even locally I have seen companies who have gone and deployed a full stack of OSS software and struggle to keep things up and running due to lack availability of patch/update management techniques. Motive in deploying OSS was to save a quick buck which resulted in suffer to the mainstream business. Microsoft on the other hand have a much better approach and a solution to this problem through the System Center products.

Also another major enabler on this is situation is the developer platform. Most of the times when Microsoft releases a new tool or a version there is an SDK/API with it so developers can start their game. Recently Apple also realized the importance of having a developer force behind them, see the effect on enabling developers to develop apps for iPhone. Surprisingly I haven’t seen any similar trend in the OSS world except the popular saying that “the source code is available for you to do anything”. Well! having the source code of a massive software application is one thing and being able to understand and edit/change/update the complex C/C++ code is something totally different. For an instance lets say I found the complete blueprint of a space shuttle … if I think for a moment I’ll be able to engineer the entire shuttle and go to space just because I got the blueprints I must be a real idiot … a real ambitious one at that. For me … having the source code of an OSS software is somewhat similar. Take the total number of computer users in the world … how many of them are programmers, how many of those programmers are C/C++ programmers? and how many of those C/C++ programmers are capable of handling something so complicated. I’m sure the number is very small compared to the billion+ who uses computers.

My friend’s vision is “everybody should be using OSS because its free and the source code is available and you can do anything you wish”, while I stick with my end of the story where “masses of people should be able to access and use computers with minimum or if possible zero trouble and shouldn't have to worry about whether the source code is rectangular or circular”.

Anyways … things ended up with many unsolved questions … until next time bro …