Future-proofing your business

The Bigger They Are …

Article from Issue 107/2009
Author(s):

maddog examines why students should use free and open source technologies when learning the basics of computing.

This is a landmark year for me: 40 years in computing (almost all of it using "open source"), 29 years using Unix, and 15 years using Linux (or GNU/Linux to some people). Most of those 15 years I have spent talking and writing articles about using free software. In fact, I have been using the same program to do my text editing for a quarter century because it steadily improves and is available on many systems.

One of my discussion points for free software is always "longevity." I have pointed out to many people that the software industry is a relatively young industry and that, in a lot of cases we are not only putting our collective eggs into one basket, but we appear to be using genetically modified chickens with a lock on the hen house door. If a disaster comes, we might not be able to reproduce our "chickens."

Free software, however, has much in common with free-range chickens – gradual improvement by cross-breeding, open sharing of blood lines, and free and open exchange of results. From time to time, we might lose a chicken to a wild animal, but the overall improvement of the chickens goes on.

[...]

Use Express-Checkout link below to read the full article (PDF).

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

comments powered by Disqus