Why is it that if you don't like country music you're "normal", if you like country music you're a redneck, and if you don't like rap or hip hop you're a racist?

I have no insight on it - I thought I'd ask, mostly because I'm bored of watching the "can it or can't it run XP" debate over the new Intel-based Apple boxes that is currently running all over the blogsphere.

Although I do have another question...

Why is it that if I don't like Open Source, I'm an arrogant bastard, that is also anti-freedom and only in business for money?

From a previous comment: "you're arrogant if you think that open source won't succeed just because 'people are too dumb to code'" which reminded me of how my view of Open Source is frowned upon by a number of bloggers, most of them Penguin-thumpers. Simply put, I don't believe that the motto of "many hands make light work" works in software. In fact, whenever I've seen managers haphazardly throw engineers at a task, it makes for more work in the long run.

Along those same lines, having the source code exposed doesn't automatically make a product better. I'd even go further to say that it will make it worse by exposing possible exploits that the coders didn't think of. The biggest threat to software today - aside from User Error - is that software is being used in ways that were never anticipated: that will continue over time, so what might not be an exploit today could be one tomorrow. Why help hackers with source code?

I stand by that response: the mass populous aren't ready made coders, no matter how easy the language. A person is smart; collectively people are often stupid. Why else would pop music be popular? Besides, I've seen experienced coders - myself included - make horrific mistakes and they've had extensive training and thousands of lines of code - the general public would be far worse.

Think of it this way: anyone can physically perform surgery on a human body. Gimme an X-acto knife and I'm a surgeon, right? Find the spot, slice away, and - as they say so often in hacking movies - "you're in!" Training? I've got a TimeLife book that's about biology. You're the one on the table. Do you want that operation performed by people without known credentials and in a group-think committee way? The technologist that's got a 1986 black and white book on biology and knife from an art supply closet?

I wouldn't want me there either. Especially since I've nearly failed Biology many times over: you can't reboot a human as easily as a computer. My overall point is still that just because it's label'd Open Source it doesn't mean it's good software any more than it would make it bad software - it's got little to do with the overall product. Maybe it's even better to say that I don't care how the product got made, so long as it's good when I get it. If I want something changed, I file requests (as I have with FeedDemon, TypePad, et al) and continue to work with it. Some software might make sense to be OSS, but I don't see the business model behind it, nor would I want all applications to be that way... Imagine handing a group of Geeky HS students the source for the power grid in NYC?

Open Sourced But Closed For Business.