THE UNCONSCIOUS OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE (OSS) FANATICS

One of the perks of the job of a Chief Information Officer (CIO) involves attending various ICT events in the form of summits, seminars, workshops, conferences etc. which are IT get-together(s) by any other name.  Obviously this will only happen when the busy schedule of one is open to do so. Whilst informative and enlightening, such events also provide an opportunity for networking for the professionals in the field.  Of late they also serve as beauty contests for the latest IT gadgets in the offering.

Interesting discussions more often take place during the tea and lunch breaks where you find geeks competing about the powerful functions of their gadgets and the latest free and not-so-free apps they have downloaded from the app stores.

In this events, being known to be an open source proponent, I am often approached by various people who will tell me how open source software will never work in South Africa for various reasons. However, I always laugh when I am alone because the very same people will be taking pictures, tweeting, facebooking and posting videos on YouTube using the latest Android tablets and smart phones.

Interesting to note is that while most of them are diehard proprietary software lovers, they spend 24/7 hours of their lives with Open Source Software as they not only use it, but they take it to work, to lunch, dinners, to the gadget beauty contests and also to play lullaby songs when they have difficulties sleeping at night.  Such people I call the Unconscious Open Source Software fanatics because when they wake up one day, they will realise that they have been using Open Source Software and not only do they love it, but it has performed better that the proprietary software that they always promoted and defended!

This is my first post and will be keeping you clued to your screen with more!

I hope you enjoyed the read.