Being brave

The world of free software and the world of proprietary software are two separate universes. They are substantially different.

Free software is to computers what democracy is to society. Free software means democracy, proprietary software means dictatorship and slavery. Proprietary software means that you are either a slave or a master, free software means that there is no master and no slave.

With the increasing impact of software on our daily lives, free software is the only choice if we want sustainable peace on Earth.

The most important advantage of Free software is to avoid vendor lock-in. This is still very difficult to sell. The breakthrough of free software is not yet achieved. Normal managers still prefer a proprietary system over a sovereign system because that’s cheaper and more comfortable. We all tend to value comfort over sovereignty.

Choosing free software means that you need to be brave because you leave the mainstream. Many people believe that managers should be rather careful than brave. I don’t fully agree with this. Here are some thoughts to hopefully encourage you.

Being brave does not mean to be careless. There are situations where brave decisions need to be done. Freedom from vendor lock-in is one of them.

Some people just shrug when I tell them that avoiding vendor lock-in is more important than their comfort, or that I will rather grow potatoes than accepting to write non-free software. My Lino project exists only because I am crazy enough to believe that open solutions will become the norm some day. I am realistic enough to see that this day might not be very soon.