Re: [Fsfe-uk] Fwd: OSS Watch inaugural conference, 11 December 2003

[Andrew Savory]

Hi,

(Marc: I should be attending the OSS Watch conference, time permitting.)

There seems to be quite a bit of scepticism on this list and a fair 
amount of misinformation. The idea of OSS Watch is to provide a 
balanced and neutral source of information about Open Source software 
to the Higher Education community - and to be balanced you must 
recognise that alternatives exist, and that for some people, a 
proprietary software package may be of more use. For this reason and 
many more, it makes a lot of sense to have the biggest vendor of 
proprietary software at the event.

Kevin Donnelly said the following on 27/11/2003 11:52:

> Perhaps I'm being a boring old fart, but why is an open-source group 
> at an open-source conference having an MS presenter?  Presumably it's 
> in some sort of misguided attempt to be "fair" and hear "both sides of 
> the story".

Not misguided but deliberate. If both sides of the story weren't 
presented it would hardly give a balanced perspective, would it?

On 27 Nov 2003, at 14:06, Tom Coady wrote:

> Na, they are just going through the motions of their constitutional 
> objectives to justify JISC funding

I wouldn't say "going through the motions", I'd say fulfilling the 
objectives they set out to do.

<rant>
The biggest problem with "open source evangelists" these days is their 
frequent inability to accept that people may want or need to hear both 
sides of the story. The open hostility with which they launch into 
arguments claiming the proprietary vendors have no right to put their 
side of the story frankly marks the evangelists as no better than the 
proprietary vendors. It also alienates the very people they seek to 
convert.
</rant>


Andrew.

--
Andrew Savory, Managing Director, Luminas Limited
Tel: +44 (0)870 741 6658  Fax: +44 (0)700 598 1135
Web: http://www.luminas.co.uk/
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