Enterprise open source Toolkit
Story: Open-source efforts derailed by 'loud minority'
The point is....
...that normal businesspeople, as well as technical folk who aren't as psychologically dependent upon one side or another of the FLOSS/commercial conflict, see what gives every appearance of a growing crowd of ever-more-immature individuals who apparently shout without listening. These individuals, and you could definitely have counted me among their number five or ten years ago, are truly a large part of the problem rather than the solution. Businesspeople just want to get their work done, whether that's analyzing financial data, managing a manufacturing line, or whatever. They see PCs (of whatever make and OS) as tools, as glorified typewriters. One of the great successes of the FLOSS movement has been highlighting the increasing commoditization of software. Business people see this; they see that when they order new systems, they come with one set of software, which everyone they deal with is comfortable with; they can (with recent exception) be confident that any document they exchange with another colleague or customer will Just Work. They know that "these computer thingies" aren't always as reliable as typewriters, tending to fail just as an important deadline approaches. They're generaly willing to listen to practical, reasoned arguments on how to do what they're already doing better/more reliably/faster/cheaper. They're *NOT* interested in theological debate, and raised voices generally ensure that the speaker gets no further hearing within the listener's organization, or any that the listener has influence over.
People have tried to point out for some time that the various "fringe communities" have gone egregiously overboard in a number of ways. (For a related example, try Googling 'Kathy Sierra' if you're not already familiar with THAT travesty.)
Basically, we in the FLOSS community need to conduct ourselves, individually and organizationally, in a way that projects reassuring, knowledgeable professionalism, and not the latest episode of Overgrown Middle Schoolboys Gone Wild on Fox. We've seen that people who get into FLOSS tend to get enthusiastic about it; that's how we all started. If we're going to survive, we've got to grow in ways that we as a community have steadily resisted for decades. But that's true, at least in general terms, of any living thing: anything that doesn't grow in a way that's respectful of its environment eventually dies. Think 'cancer'.
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