Tux Machines

You thought you bought software – all you bought was a lie

Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Oct 04, 2022

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At the heart of the computer industry are some very big lies, and some of them are especially iniquitous. One is about commercial software.

Free and open source software (FOSS) is at the root of a very big lie. FOSS itself isn't a lie. FOSS is real and it matters. The problem is that the most significant attribute of FOSS is a negative. It's all about what it is not. It's quite hard to explain things in terms of what they are not. People aren't used to it, and it can cause more confusion than it clears up.

So, instead, FOSS advocates talk about aspects which are easier to explain. Stuff like "source code," which is where the term "open source" came from. The problem is that in real life, the parts that are relatively easy to convey are most often completely irrelevant, at best unimportant, and at worst, not true at all.

So first, I want to talk about something equally important, but which may seem like a digression. Let's talk about convenience.

Anyone who chooses to use free and open source software on their desktop regularly gets asked why. Why bother? Isn't it more work? Isn't the pro-grade gear commercial? Isn't it worth buying the good stuff? Windows is the industry standard, isn't it simply less work to go with the flow?

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