Why engage in open source FUD?

There is big money in FUD. (Elmer Fudd did not become really dangerous until Warner Brothers gave him a gun.)

There is, in fact, more money in a software industry that requires FUD than in open source, which frankly doesn't.

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt thrive within an absence of information. They exist to justify "the leap," the faith you must have to sign a big contract on limited information.

Entire industries, including market research, have existed for years to manufacture and dismiss FUD. To some degree this is one of those industries.

But FUD is one of those things forced out in the open source profit press. You can test the code, you can look at it, you can see if it is right for you, you can apply it, before you sign a contract for open source services.

Now in that press analogy above what is forced out may be oil or wine, fine products in their own right. And what is forced out by the open source FUD press may be the jobs of many people.

But analogies are just that. They are not reality. They are attempts to explain something hard in a way people will understand and relate to.

Marketing does that. Advertising does that. Market research does that. Journalism does that. We all try to find a hook to bring the customer back.

But in open source the customer can try before they buy, and enter any vendor relationship with their eyes wide open.

Which means a lot of people are going to have to find new ways to justify what we do, as the market moves decisively to open source in the next several years.

I don't know what those things are, but I have faith we will find them. Even the good people at the Gartner Group. You'll just have to excuse us as we go through a grieving process for what was before embracing what is and will be.