on growing up

Doug over at Geek Pit posted a nice commentary on a recent story about how the slow adoption of Open Source into mainstream technology is partly due to the community's public appearance. While I mean no offense to Doug personally, I disagree with his opinion on this topic. I started writing a comment to his commentary, but when it started getting too long, I decided to write my own commentary on the matter.

I work hard in my department. Technology plays a huge role in how my company makes money -- as a matter of fact, they'd be out of business in a day if their computers disappeared. Being a part of this core means of success for my company makes me feel important. However, that mentality should not be turned into selfish ego. At any time, I could be replaced with someone else. My department would still be there, the company would still make money, and I'd be broke and unemployed. The fact is, I need them more than they need me. So when my company issues a dress code of business casual, who am I to complain? They've made the decision and it's now my choice to follow through. If I absolutely hate wearing khakis and polos, I can simply find another job.

Now expand "my company" into the whole United States. There's an unofficial rule in modern business that says if you want advance, then you need to dress professional. I don't care how uncomfortable or expensive it is. If someone tries going to Washington to lobby for Open Source wearing some stained "I ate the worm" t-shirt, he's not going to get far.

Equally, attitude is just as important as dress. To excuse Technology Professionals from interacting with non-techies because they're not interested in using layman's terms is ignorant. When a response to someone about why they should implement an Open Source solution is frustration and a Napoleon Dynamite style "Gosh!", again, progress is not going to be made.

The technology industry is very competitive and, like it or not, we're all salesmen. If we can't explain to our boss why we should implement BIND as our DNS server instead of Microsoft's DNS solution, how can we expect to collectively help Open Source gain more acceptance? Every time a boss, a reporter, a friend, or potential customer ask our opinion, we're making a sale. If we can't win them over, someone else will.

Failure to do this cannot be blamed on anyone else but ourselves. Being reliant on a few individuals who posses both business and tech skills is naive. These people are nothing more than social buffers protecting lazy tech-savvy egoists. If more Open Source advocates stood up, combed their hair, and thought about what they can actually offer to the general public, they'd be taken a lot more seriously.

The Real World is not fun. Unfortunately, it's full of greedy, slimy businessmen. Until we reach that utopian Star Trek world where man works with technology to better himself, we need to learn how today's business works and follow along with it.

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