by Carla Schroder
Managing Editor
So let me tell you how my day went. It started at 7am on my back
deck. I usually start my workday there when the weather is nice.
It’s cool, the bugs aren’t awake yet, and it’s just plain nice to
be outside.
Eventually I move back inside to the big computer. I like
laptops, but an hour or two working on one is plenty. My office is
the way I want it, everything I need for computering fun in one
happy messy place. I spent a bundle to get good chairs that don’t
mess up my back, and I don’t have to guard them from thieving
co-workers. I have my own music, cats, and even a window that
opens. Now please someone tell me- what sadist perpetrated and
perpetuated horrid office buildings with windows that don’t open? I
can understand a lone sociopath putting up such a building and
enjoying the resulting misery- but how it became the standard
doesn’t speak well of the building industry. I wonder if they have
a secret slogan- “Haha, We Built It And You Bought It, Sucker!”
On my breaks I can mess around outside, or hop on the treadmill,
or take a quick nap. Today I spent my lunch break digging big holes
with a backhoe. (Hint to tired gardeners: rent big machines. It’s
faster and more fun.)
Two things made this pleasant lifestyle possible: the Internet
and Linux. You may recall the story a few weeks that went all
freakout over open source costing vendors sixty billion dollars,
and that used words like “bloodletting”. It took some hard work to
twist it around to that perspective, and of course savvy Linux
Today readers saw right through it and put the correct spin on
the story, which was the economy did not waste $60 billion thanks
to FOSS.
A savvier reporter would have recognized the real story, which
is that robber barons benefit only themselves. FOSS is rather like
a good sourdough culture, because a properly cared-for sourdough
culture will live and feed people forever. You can’t take from it
without giving it a little something back because then it will
die.
Another fundamental point these types of stories miss is that
price tag does not equal value, and an economy is about more than
price tags. It’s a complex organism that needs a lot of
participants and diversity to thrive and be healthy. It needs trade
of all kinds- skills, knowledge, and goods to name just a few. A
good strong economy could thrive without any kind of money at
all.
Oh I know, think of the poor billionaires- they think it’s
harder to become filthy rich under that type of system, which is
why are so ruthless in killing it. For them to win, everyone else
must lose. Which is another kind of blindness, and creating an
enemy where there isn’t one- anyone can use and benefit from FOSS.
I may cry myself to sleep over mean old FOSS picking on them. On
second thought, nah, why bother?