Submitted by stevenmansour on February 1, 2008 - 3:02pm.
Well that's the thing - while I'm a huge believer in the power of Open Source, I also feel that there's a place for commercial software as well. I don't think that all software should be open-source.
I use Skype, Bibble, and Adobe Photoshop CS2 (all on Linux), as well as other commericial software on my Windows box. I buy lots of PC and console games (all commercial software, and all of high quality). I sometimes use closed, proprietary social networks when they're useful to me, like last.fm or LinkedIn. It's just that the vast majority of software I use is free / open source - not only because it's free (I can afford to buy all the tools I need) or only because of philosophical reasons (I'm a pragmatist when it comes to "getting things done", and as companies go, Microsoft is one of the ones I feel least bad giving my money to), but just because it's better, higher-quality, more flexible software than the commercial alternatives. The Ubuntu OS helps me get more work done than I was able to on OS X or Windows. OpenOffice has options that I can customize to give me a better experience than iWork or MS Office. And on and on. I'll use whatever software works best to do my work - it's just that today, the software that works best is, 90% of the time, already open source. It's a good time to be a web professional.
Well that's the thing - while I'm a huge believer in the power
Well that's the thing - while I'm a huge believer in the power of Open Source, I also feel that there's a place for commercial software as well. I don't think that all software should be open-source.
I use Skype, Bibble, and Adobe Photoshop CS2 (all on Linux), as well as other commericial software on my Windows box. I buy lots of PC and console games (all commercial software, and all of high quality). I sometimes use closed, proprietary social networks when they're useful to me, like last.fm or LinkedIn. It's just that the vast majority of software I use is free / open source - not only because it's free (I can afford to buy all the tools I need) or only because of philosophical reasons (I'm a pragmatist when it comes to "getting things done", and as companies go, Microsoft is one of the ones I feel least bad giving my money to), but just because it's better, higher-quality, more flexible software than the commercial alternatives. The Ubuntu OS helps me get more work done than I was able to on OS X or Windows. OpenOffice has options that I can customize to give me a better experience than iWork or MS Office. And on and on. I'll use whatever software works best to do my work - it's just that today, the software that works best is, 90% of the time, already open source. It's a good time to be a web professional.