Dichotomy

A friend and I were talking about how there are purists in just about any group you can think about. That got me thinking. He was right. Even in the mainstream leftist movement of my student days, there were those who always thought they were above everybody else. Except to the higher ups, that is .

Well the open source movement is no exception, I guess. For the linux movement in particular, there are those who are in it for the code and those who are in it for the cause. Those who are technically adept use Linux because of the challenge that it presents. Altruistic, many are. Yet there are those that feel they should be held above the rest of the general populace because of their technical adeptness. There is within this group an equally tenacious group of thinkers that shun all that does not conform to their way of thinking, so called purists. They are only open to developments that conform to their mode of thought and nothing else.

Then there are those who use Linux because they believe in the cause of open source. They think this is the answer to bridging the digital divide and not the gazillion-dollar Gates Foundations of the world. They think open source will empower the poor to help themselves. They BELIEVE that the promise of this technology has the potential to solve some of this woeful country's problems. They BELIEVE it offers hope for this land mired in US$ 34-billion in foreign debt.

I am part of the latter. I believe in open source because of its promise and the freedom it represents. I am, to put it simply, not a coder. I don't tinker with kernels or apps or anything of that sort. What I do is use what is there. What I do is make open source software useful to me and in turn share my discoveries with the communities I belong to. What I lack in technical skill, I try and make up for through advocacy. Heck, before I used linux I did not even care about piracy. Now I use that issue to make a point. Illegal software is illegal software. Proprietary software is expensive. Open source is free, owned by communities that use it. As opposed to proprietary software whose buyers only buy a license to use it. They aren't buying the software, just a license to use it. Hence, they don't own it. The contrast being software should empower people and not enslave them to the big fat bottomlines of giant corporations. Software should benefit people paying for it, not just those who write it.

Why am I ranting, you might ask? Well, purists curb my enthusiasm. But as things stand now, they are necessary to any movement. They are the voice of caution and restraint, whether they are heeded or not. I guess I'll just post this rant and let it be done with. Get over it and move on, as a good friend of mine put it. So here goes - **click** purists, you have been iggyed.