Re: Merits of why biz switches - was Re: [Fsfe-uk] Mac OS X refund

[Dave Crossland]

On 27/01/2008, Jon Grant <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>  > If a business is using proprietary software, they can't switch in one
>  > day, or one year, even one decade.
>
>  Good point.

This means startups have no reason not to use free software;
substantial intimately-computer related business have done fresh
starts with free software for at least a decade, and I think we'll see
more 'regular' businesses switching as soon as accounting/payroll and
stock control (ie, webcart webapps) get popularised.

>  > Whats important is that they are switching because they recognise the
>  > social problem of proprietary software and value their freedom, and
>  > are _sincere_ about switching.
>
>  Do they really siwtch on those merits? Most businesses I talk to switch
>  to Firefox for security reasons. OpenOffice because it is no-charge and
>  GNU+Linux for servers because it is no-charge and more reliable than
>  MS-Windows.

Security, reliability and zero acquisition costs are caused by
software freedom.

Never mind the legitimisation of using insecure, unreliable and
overpriced software that tramples our whole society's freedom, which
inevitably led to the so-called "open source" activities that don't
meet the OSD at all.

The trickiest damage to undo that 'open source as marketing effort for
software freedom' did to the software freedom movement is influencing
people not to see the wood for the trees.

Changing this is a matter of perception; and what agitates me about
people promoting software freedom with computers running Mac OS X.

-- 
Regards,
Dave