My personal vision for taking advantage of open source software is to build up a collection of open source applications, gradually replacing commercial applications as well as shareware and non-open-source freeware with open source ones. Part of this vision is to create a solid edifice – a suite of applications that I feel I can rely on for some time to come.
As a Mac user, I have no plans to move to Linux for my home PowerBook computer (after all Mac OS X is essentially a Unix variant), but I might try using Linux on a different machine at some point. I also expect to continue using Windows XP or Vista for the foreseeable future. Thus my ideal suite of applications would be a cross-platform suite available for all three major operating system platforms.
One example of such an application is NVu, a general-purpose HTML editor mention in an earlier chapter. Another is JEdit, an omnibus text editor also mentioned earlier. I expect that I will gradually switch to open source applications as I encounter ones that might be useful to me, try them, and determine that they are adequate for my needs.
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An Aside on Strategic Planning Some readers will recognize articulation of a vision statement as a key part of strategic planning. Why bother with strategic planning? The reason is illustrated by Alice in Wonderland’s question of the Cheshire Cat in the thick wood: “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where – ” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. “ – so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation. “Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.” |
Solid and enduring as one hopes it may be, a personal open source edifice will definitely lack the pleasing architectural design and consistency of a cathedral. Instead, like some buildings found on university campuses (Suzzallo Library at the University of Washington comes immediately to mind), it will resemble a structure to which wings designed by different architects have been added using different materials over a period of time.
In a home or office environment, many people may primarily be concerned with software on their desktop or laptop computer. However, websites and databases hosted on local or remote servers are increasingly essential for most businesses and fo many individuals as well.
Web hosting services typically offer a variety of capabilities to their customers, some of them based on open source software. This gives customers the option of augmenting basic websites with open source technologies such as PHP, with some assurance that they will continue to be supported for some time to come. Likewise, businesses can opt for open source technologies for databases and Web services.