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A ZDNet report on the "loud minority" in the FOSS Movement. Efforts to increase the adoption of open-source software are being derailed by the efforts of a "loud minority" within the community who have made personal attacks on individuals who have expressed doubts about the software, according to one of the open-source movement's main advocates.
Jeff Waugh of open-source advocacy group Waugh Partners was disheartened after a series of personal attacks directed at the heads of Australian government agencies. These included comments directed at Australian Taxation Office chief information officer Bill Gibson...
Some of the public responses to the article labelled Gibson a "bureaucratic parasite" and his concerns "short-sighted".
While Waugh believes the open-source model holds better security outcomes than its proprietary equivalent, he describes the vitriolic reaction to Gibson's comments as being "disgraceful" and says they achieve nothing for the industry.
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"This kind of language makes it extremely hard for the open-source industry to get the appropriate level of consideration in government departments," Waugh continued.
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Waugh was also disheartened when personal attacks were levelled at Standards Australia's Alistair Tegart over Microsoft's push to have its OOXML format accepted as an ISO standard. "I suspect that as a result, [Teggart] is becoming deeply cynical about open source," Waugh said. Is this the same "loud minority" that prattles on about the moral value of free code, FOSS licenses as social contracts and the freedom-to-tinker that consumers have shown little enthusiasm about?
posted by Noel Le @ 7:36 AM | Free Culture Movement
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