On Sun, 2008-01-27 at 19:41 +0100, Dave Crossland wrote: > On 27/01/2008, Jon Grant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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;
Apart from most not even knowing what free software is, not knowing how to get support for it and being told that they are out on a limb by most people around them giving them start up advice. How many business link advisers would promote an open source start up for a non-technical company? > 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. And all the early adopters are in place to give confidence to the middle of the bell-curve of knowledge and expertise. This is why education is important in accelerating change. Probably more so now than technical issues. > > > 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. perhaps but again most people have no idea that this is so and unless there is a way of changing that they will not learn about it in large numbers any time soon. > 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. Without mass education it's only going to be a tiny minority that ever see the wood for the trees no matter what terminology is used. > Changing this is a matter of perception; and what agitates me about > people promoting software freedom with computers running Mac OS X. Apple is in many ways worse than MS, just not as successful mainly because the hardware *and* the software was entirely locked into one company. Ian -- New QCA Accredited IT Qualifications www.theINGOTs.org You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. _______________________________________________ Fsfe-uk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-uk
