Waiting for the rapture

“To my surprise, I have been involved with free and open source
software (FOSS) for the better part of twelve years. For ten years
of that time, I have made my living from FOSS, either as an
employee or as a free-lance writer. But sometimes, I have to admit,
I get tired of waiting for FOSS to fulfill its potential. While it
has come a long way, FOSS still isn’t as universal as I thought it
would be by now. Sometimes, I think the movement — and I — have
lost sight of the goal among the day to day necessities.

“I remember the first time I became convinced that FOSS could
become the norm. It was when I first saw GNU Parted. I had been a
user of PartitionMagic from its earliest days as an OS/2
application and been impressed that what was then an innovative
tool had originated completely outside the Windows ecosphere. If
FOSS could duplicate that effort in the form of GNU Parted, even
without a graphical interface, then it seemed to me that there were
no limits to what FOSS could accomplish. Once people saw what was
available as free software, why would anyone ever buy its
proprietary counterpart ever again?”

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