Christian Science Monitor Putting OSS at the Helm

Jane Walker writes to tell us that the Christian Science Monitor is becoming quite the proponent of open source. The aggressive nature of OSS was a large part of what drew CIO Curtiss Edge into the fold, it seems. From the article: "But beyond the tangibles like open source code it was the community that made a convert of Edge. Behind all the open code, it was the forums and flexibility that were the driving forces he believes breeds better developers than those that toil away with proprietary code. Open source software makes developers more aggressive and more apt to go out into the communities that exist around the software to find solutions to their problems, Edge said, rather than holding on some proprietary help desk line while tech support looks up the answer."

Comments

Re:Splitted Personalities

[darkonc]

Anyway, sharing with others is a Christian virtue, instead of a form of Communist idealism (which is what proprietary software firms told you).

You forgot to mention the old Homestead practice of community Barn Raisings. -- Probably the nicest pre-computing analogy to Open Source.

Re:Support frustration

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue is not open source vs propriatary software, but a clash between the process oriented view and the solution oriented view. In the process oriented view, the main goal is to follow an established process, since the theory is that if we follow the process then we will arrive at the solution. E.g. listening to muzak while waiting for tech support.

In the solution oriented view, we/us are the tech support person and it is up to us to find the answers. We can't use 'I passed it on to Jeeves' excuse!

Re:Splitted Personalities

[SpanishArcher]

Open-source advocates were being known as Communists (Left), and now the same group of people become Christians (Right)?

I am NOT a communist, but still support OSS.
I'm not such a big Christian either, I mean, I grew up in a catholic family but I'm not a strong believer. Still, I don't like proprietary software.
I'm not leftwing (even though here in Europe right and left are somehow different than in the USA)

All in all, the real point is: what on earth has to do the OSS dispute with political, or worse, religious issues?

You can make good money out of OSS, and I'm pretty sure Jesus would have kicked out the Temple both Steve Ballmer or the Red Hat CEO :)

My 2 cents.

Christians and OSS

[nickrout]

I certainly have noticed a large number of christians in my local Linux Users Group. Someone posted a question on the list about software for some religious purpose (hymns dissemination contrary to the wishes of the RIAA? congregation monitoring? can't remember really) and they all came out of the woodwork. I was surprised about the number of active church goers. Perhaps I am just jaundiced by boarding school forcing me to go to church, but in my "other than geek" life I know no one who goes to church!

Re:Splitted Personalities

[Anonymous Coward]

You say that as if communist idealism is a bad thing.

I'm guessing you're an American?

The ideals behind Communism are brilliant and worthy of striving for: From each according to their ability; for each according to their need.

They're certainly a lot better than the ideals of capitalism: I got mine and screw everyone else.

Re:People read the title of the CSM and turn off

[Eivind Eklund]

In addition, this lateness has another effect: we generally believe and base our ideas off the first information we get.

We do in the case of information that has high personal relevance. For information that has low personal relevance, the later message is more important. See

Haugtvedt, C. P., & Wegener, D. T. (1994). Message order effects in persuasion: An attitude strength perspective. Journal of Consumer Research, 21, 205-218.

For an overview of strongly related topics, see "Multiple Routes To Resisting Attitude Change" by Wegner, Petty, Smoak and Fabrigar in Resistance And Persuation (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004, Edited by Eric S. Knowles and Jay A. Linn.)

Eivind.

Re:Neo-cons co-opted terms like Christian & Li

[gvc]

Unless those articles are about Christian Science zealots refusing medical attention to the sick and dying.

Here's a CSM article on the Schiavo case. Judge for yourself.

Real Christians are typically well read and well thougt out individuals.

GP made no such generalization.

Liberal == Communist

An apt paraphrasal of the neo-con smear to which gp refers.

Re:I agree, misleading name

[Anonymous Coward]

the special brand of Christianity that seems to have the loudest voice in America these days does show evidence of a neanderthal mindset).

The Christian Science Monitor is an excellent newspaper. The fact that it is associated with the religion of 'Christian Science' does not seem influence its content at all.

Christian Science itself is rather odd, and I think many of their beliefs are wrong. But they keep their beliefs to themselves, and they don't go knocking on my door like other small religions, so I really can't complain.

Re:Neo-cons co-opted terms like Christian & Li

[Tweekster]

Exactly. For research papers the first time I read an article from their website I saw it was the Christian Science Monitor and wasnt sure about it. Then I verified the facts and realized it was the best article I had. There was a continous theme in papers I worked on, the CSM was always very well written and extremely accurate and a great resource. The name throws you at first but in reality it is a great respectable place for real journalism.