Open source rears it's ugly head

An article today by the BBC suggests that the UK government, or at least, the opposition, think that open source is a great idea and will adopt it "when it provides value".

I will say up front that I use open source software. I have contributed to it when I had nothing better to do and I am sure there is a place for it in technology but; and it's a big but, open source can never work for massive public services, large enterprises or for people that think it saves money over proprietary licensed software. Why? Well, because open source software is inherently altruistic. It must be because the writers of Open Source code must go into the job without the slightest whif of expectation of being able to make money out of it. Whether thay do or not in the end is niether here nor there. The idea must be born in total altruism and it may mature into a money making scheme later.

The problem then becomes the license. Open source licenses state that you should give back to qualify to use it. Public services and corporations don't like to give back, especially if it has anything to do with proprietary data. Now you can theoretically use open source code, modify it to suit your needs and never republish a single line. This however means that the code sits in the code vaults, requires a maintenance staff and, worst of all, diverges from the main-line over time. Simply because no two development teams ever have the same algorithmic philosophies. In the end, maintaining a staff of developers for an indeterminite period of time is often far less cost effective than buying a license and the occasional update.

Lastly, I have a moral objection to open source that many will disagree vehemently with but I don't care what you, dear reader, may say. I object to open source code because it devalues my job in the eyes of people who know SQUAT! about how to craft a good program. People like the shadow under secretary for digital media is a pencil pushing small-time politician who thinks that software is a free commodity that falls from the ether of the internet like rain from the sky and believes that the sheer volume of it must mean that some of it must be good in the same way that an infinite number of monkeys can whip out a few really good sonnets now and again.

Writing software is an art that requires skill and creativity. People today realise more than ever that skill and artistry are saleable commodities. Don't give too much away for free because it cheapens the market.

Off topic..

I am sitting here doing my newsgroups and my blog while my darling wife edits HTML for her myspace page.

She never ceases to amaze and delight me!

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=181118149

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=181118149

Go on.. Give her some traffic! ;-)

For Mitsu

My comment on windows forms controls was a joke!

Linq to Entities. The full horror...

I have a pal who I respect. He's a consultant for Microsoft France who told me that it'd be a great idea to use Linq to Entities rather than Linq to Sql. Why? Well, because Linq to Entities is the official way of the future and it seems silly to have two highly similar implementations of the same thing so Linq to SQL was going away.

As it turns out, This might be great long term advice but IMHO right now. If you want a solution that works. Go with Linq to SQL. The offer is more mature and the clincher is that the Entities DLL's have a major fault inasmuch as they have been compiled without the attribute that enables them to run in medium trust environments so, GoDaddy for one will not allow these DLL's on their servers.

Incredible lightness of being

I have a few moments to kill her at Techdays Paris while I wait for my friend Mitsu to give his presentation so I thought I would edit a quick post. What is surprising about this is that for the firtst time in ten years or more after conferences on two continents, I am here without a laptop! All my needs for comminication and such are served by my phone, the iPhone.

Not carrying the weight of a laptop in my bag or having it on my lap cooking my legs is a real luxury.