Tuesday, October 18, 2005

After all these years, Bill Gates still hasn't figured it out.

When you read that article you'll discover that he says Microsoft has free software (as in 'gratis') too, but that is not what Free Software is about. OK, I admit, it will probably be a factor for some people, but you'll only find this to be true in a very few specific cases. The price point is important in the few cases where people have grown tired of illegal software, tired of hunting down cracks, downloading warez from the net, especially since every little stupid tool or programs has a rather high price. For them, an OSS program will be just the tool for the job for an unbeatable price.

Though, for most people who turn to OSS, this will not be the driving factor. The quality will be (i'm not saying all OSS is high quality though), another important feature is that OSS gives power to the user and not to the vendor. These are the two important advantages to 'Free Software' that flow from the fact that the source code is available for the user.

As long as Bill Gates keeps his focus on the free (as gratis) piece of OSS we have nothing to worry about.

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