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If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.
-- George Bernard Shaw

This page is under construction. In fact, I have just started it because some clever things to say about open source came to my mind, but that will be next. For now, enjoy some links:

Open source vs. Microsoft?

The term "open source" is identified mostly with Linux and the prominent opponent is usually believed to be Microsoft (see also this description from the Jargon file), but lately it's been Microsoft itself that helped spreading this reductive view of the matter; in actual fact, just to give you some examples, the GNU Project and the various BSD dialects predate Linux, and Microsoft is certainly not the only producer of proprietary closed source software. However, as Microsoft is the prominent critic of open source, we'll stick with them for now.

Indeed, the first and foremost "enemy" of computer geeks has always been Microsoft. It's not that we dislike Microsoft and its software because Bill's got all those billions in his pocket, really; it's because we're all skilled computer users and we can see the flaws in the Microsoft software, so we write our own. It all really boils down to two points:

Open source software is here because a varying amount of enthusiasts like to hack on their computers and, most important, to share their knowledge with others. When they say that they prefer Linux or whatever to Windows, it's because they mean it: they have the technical ability to get away without the "dumb-proof" wizards, and patching the kernel to suit your needs is so incredibly fascinating.
You might not be able to understand this if you aren't one of us yourself, but just about every other human activity can be used as an example:
Why some like to cook when there are restaurants and pre-made food available?
Why some brew their own beer?
Why some even go as far as tweaking and customizing their car or motorbike?
Because we like it. The difference with software is that no one of these will compete with restaurants or car manufacturers, because you can't copy a soup or a car for almost no money.
Microsoft is making money from Windows, so they don't do things that "don't sell". Every copy of Linux or *BSD or StarOffice is one less copy of Windows and Office. This automatically makes all comments about free software from Microsoft biased: no one can reasonably argue that they aren't.

Most people also dislike Microsoft's way of doing business (the U.S. DoJ for example, at least before the Bush administration), but that's a different matter.

Microsoft has been attacking Linux and open source in various ways, often confusing one for the other. In one such attack it calls Linux "a cancer that attaches itself to any other software, in an intellectual property sense" (this is supposedly a consequence of the GPL, but in general it's not true); it also says that Linux is "un-American", which is indeed true as it has been created by a Finnish and it is currently mantained by a horde of hackers from all over the globe, and anyway it's not a bad thing at all as the USA are not the center of the world (geez, some Yankees will be worried by this sentence).

Microsoft also advocates that taxpayer's money should not be used for the development of open source software. Here is an important counterexample: Security-Enhanced Linux. The NSA making security software publicly available has been compared to the Pope stepping down to St Peter's place and offering a beer to the bystanders.

It is also interesting to note that Microsoft rarely compares Windows and Linux on technical merit in public, and when doing so it never clearly separates technical and political arguments. [update 2002/11/21] Of course they did compare Windows with FreeBSD when they switched Hotmail to Windows, and of course they found out what everyone knows: Unix-like operating systems are better in just about everything when it comes to a large, real-life installation of hundreds of servers.

Why open source is better than closed source

I like to compare open source software to sport motorbikes (or cars, if you're so inclined) and commercial software to mass-produced ones: the former are hand-crafted by engineers that are not only good at their job, but also enthusiastic to do it, and targeted to the maximum performance possible; the latter are only useful to transport people from one place to another in a safe and comfortable way. Of course everyone would like to cruise around on a works motorbike like this, but not many have the technical skills to do so without crashing at the first turn; and no, electric start and air conditioning aren't available, sorry.

However, with software it is a little bit easier to make layers of simpler user interfaces that shield technically challenged people from the rough corners, but unfortunately this layering will waste a bit of the underlying power. When I use certain commercial operating systems, however, I always feel like the powerful stuff (which you have to get yourself, because the base OS doesn't provide it at all) has been stuck upon a simple base system which doesn't provide the guts to do it right.

Innovation

Microsoft likes to say that only proprietary software can guarantee the continuous innovation that will "keep you on the leading technology edge". To the contrary, it is obvious that proprietary software will take time to pick up innovative changes (you can't get the latest CVS snapshot of Windows, see what it looks like, contribute, or see if maybe it fixes that annoying bug you were experiencing, do you?) and the management will likely want proof that it sells before throwing some money at it; that's all perfectly legitimate, it's just that it doesn't necessarily help innovation. The open source stuff, which often starts as a research project, is the place where you will find innovative ideas and algorithms. What open source usually lacks is the bells and whistles that make marketroids and average users drool.

Security

Some say that open source is more secure, some say the contrary. I think that the security record of Microsoft's IIS kills any argument about the inherent security of proprietary software (and let's not talk about the braindeadness of certain features found in Outlook Express, among others, which open up the system to a whole range of new potential and very real security issues), but that's not to say that open source software doesn't have security holes. My opinion is that the two are balanced in this respect: holes are easier or harder to find for the good guys as much as for the bad ones.

Recent news: the Code Red worm infected Microsoft's own Windows Update site. The fact is "richly ironic", as The Register puts it. Definitely, Microsoft needs a vacation.

These words do not represent the opinion of anyone but myself.