21 Feb
2006
21 Feb
'06
9:45 a.m.
On Monday 20 Feb 2006 23:27, Mike Taht wrote:
Back from digression. The core analogy that I make
regarding free or
open source software is not the one "would you buy a car with the
hood nailed shut?", but "Would you buy a house without the plans
provided by the architect?".
I don't think either of these is very helpful. In both cases, for many
people the answer is "yes, of course I would". Probably these people
are equally happy with proprietary software, so your analogy may still
hold, but that won't get you far as a persuasive bit of rhetoric.
Analogy is often useful to describe, seldom to convince.
(I have tried the car analogy on a few people not familiar with open
source software, and the general response is that the question itself
is perplexing. It would make no sense to sell a car that could not be
serviced at all, while many people would indeed choose to buy a car
that could not be serviced by users "at home". For example, the Audi
A2 is sold with no user-serviceable parts except for fluid topups; it
almost literally has the hood nailed shut. Nice car, I'd buy one.
Meanwhile, I bet most people who own property here in London will never
have seen the original plans for it.)
Chris