A long time friend of SNAP and Puerto Rico, Peter Quinn rips the open source community a new one. In this article “» Open source community needs a haircut and to dress for success | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com” he is quoted as saying that “If you want to get traction in commercial environments, lose the sandals and ponytails.” A pointed quip indeed! He goes on to say “Open source has an unprofessional appearance, and the community needs to be more business-savvy in order to start to make inroads in areas traditionally dominated by commercial software vendors. (Having) a face on a project or agenda makes it attractive for politicians (to consider open source),”

I can relate to his perspective. However, it brings up something that I address a couple of times in the upcoming issue of TUX. For me, one of the biggest challenges open source software faces today is the dilemma of whether it is for engineers, open for business, or a wide spectrum in between.

What Peter is trying to bring out is that if we want more companies to choose FOSS, then we need to join the corporate world. I’m not suggesting IBM Blue suits and white shirts. I guess it’s the old saying “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. There are certain expectations corporate America expects. Variance is acceptable, outright contempt and challenge will limit our success. Is that selling out, conforming to authority, or however you want to characterize it, I call it pragmatic.