Hi Craig,

>Whil's posting is full of the same BS that most open source people use. You can read my comments regarding Whil's announcement on the Thurs, Jan 15 posting of my blog at http://www.craigberntson.com/blog/blogger.asp. The topic is "Open Source -- What is the Truth?"
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Nice rebuttal. I will have to disagree on a couple of points:

I can change my browser, office suite, or email client anytime I want. There is nothing forcing or requiring me to continue using Microsoft products. I've got just as many alternatives to choose from as anyone using open source products.

As a former Lotus AmiPro user, I know this not to be true. The corporate office and our clients used MS Office. In order to exchange documents with them, I was required to use MS Office as well. This isn't the only case where I was forced to switch to an MS product. Don't get me wrong, it's great that there is a standard. The problem is that it is a closed standard. Open Source is an attempt to replace closed standards with open ones. Yes, I know that there are filters available to read various file formats, but they are far from perfect, especially with complex documents. With Open Source, not only is the file format open, but the source code is available, which greatly increases the possibility you'll be able to open documents in the product of your choice.

It's interesting to me that we require (and probably take for granted) open access to database files via ODBC, etc., yet we simply accept the fact that the most popular file formats are accessible only via one expensive application. Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, etc. all compete based on their merits (including price) and suitability for a given situation. Office doesn't face that competition.

And can Whil honestly tell me that Red Hat wants you to use a different variant of Linux or that Open Office wants you to move to Star Office? Nope. They want you locked into their products as much as Microsoft does.

The first sentence is correct. The various vendors/developers do want you to use their products, and they compete with each other. But to believe that they want you "locked in" is to completely misunderstand the open source community. The Linux/Open Source movement is totally about choice. Open source, GPL, free software, etc. are all effective means to one end: choice. The community exists for this purpose. They cannot achieve that objective while locking in users to specific applications.