Open source software has become quite popular lately and I think it’s awesome that free software like Amarok, Open Office, GIMP and so on, are becoming so good that they not only rival their paid counterparts, but surpass them in many ways.

Why is it that many corporations and small to medium businesses cannot or will not take a step back and look at the competitive advantage and cost savings Linux and Open Source software will give their business?

I used KDE as my primary desktop from 1996 through 2006, when I installed the GNOME version of Ubuntu and found that I liked it better than the KDE desktop I'd faced every morning for so many years. Last January, I got a new Dell Latitude D630 laptop and decided to install Kubuntu on it, but within a few weeks, I went back to GNOME.

I am tired of hearing and reading that Gnu/Linux is not ready for the "regular" or "normal" user. Self proclaimed experts and pundits insist that these users can not, or will not, use Gnu/Linux.

I continue to grapple with the concept of how to treat users of Open Source projects. Should you be cruel, or kind?

I sometimes hear it said that formats like OOXML, or ODF for that matter, are simply XML serializations of a particular application's native data representation. This is said, seemingly, in an attempt to justify quirky or outright infelicitous representations. "We had no choice. Office 95 represents line widths in units of 1/5th of a barleycorn, so OOXML must as well". This technological determinism indicates poor engineering judgment, laziness, or both.

As the March 29th voting deadline on OOXML approaches, Red Hat has announced its support of Open Document Format (ODF) instead of Office Open XML (OOXML).

Upon listening to lugradio the other day, I was interested by their segment on support. It got me thinking, does the choice ethic that we are so proud of actually make it harder to support the product.