[oclug] News stories you won't see...

[Francis J. A. Pinteric]

On Sat, 8 May 2004 08:55:20 +0100
"Mark Harrison" <Mark at ascentium.co.uk> wrote:


> That's right - one of the most influential people in business IT in
> Europe perceives the linux community as wanting to talk about "moral
> issues" rather than actually whether Open/Free software can contribute
> to his business.
> 
> Taking attitudes like "we shouldn't talk to Microsoft - they are the
> enemy" is, in my business experience, actually HARMING the cause of
> trying to get Open software installed..

You're talking apples and oranges here. The thread started out asking
the question whether OCLUG should allow M$ to give presentations to us.
While your scenario is interesting, and may even to true, it doesn't
reflect OCLUG's business in the least.

OCLUG has nothing invested in Microsoft technology, therefore nothing
to gain and everything to lose from association with them. It is true
that we tend to talk about moral issues, but we need to discuss these
issues because it is obvious that many in the Open Source community
will loose their focus otherwise.

Rather than trying to make peace with Microsoft, which Microsoft has no
intention of doing with us, we should step up our efforts to fight them
at every turn. We can best do that by setting up businesses where we can
offer other businessess who wish to convert a real and practical "Linux
Conversion Experience" that works and is as painless as possible.

I find it rather strange that you object to making business decisions on
purely moral grounds. In your view then, cutting down the Brazilian rain
forest is just fine because it's great for their economy, and closing
sewage treatment plants and allowing raw sewage to be dumped into our
rivers is great for cutting taxes.

Sure, making business decisions on morals can be painful, if your were
operating immorally in the first place. You can't get rid of sin simply
by repenting, there is still the conversion and penance to do. They
shouldn't have been doing business with the devil to begin with.

>>>--fja->

-- 
"Mars is red because that way we could tell which one
is which." -- 8 year old girl.

Besides myself, there is no intelligent life in the universe.
If humanity is the scale by which intelligence is measured,
humanity is proof that there is no intelligence anywhere.