The Oft-Asked Question About Open Source

Which is, "What the hell is Open Source?". Even though i have answered with,
"It is source codes, free and open" yet i been stopped and shackled with,

"Look here mister, it is easy for you to say since you are the so called expert. For us laymen, we are the innocent victims. We know not what you re talking about".

When i move on to, "It is not just open source codes, it is also a branding move for..."

Again, "Now look here! You are not listening. We really do not know what in the world you are babbling about. Just tell us how we can sell it!".

Red1, "Well you do not really sell it. You sell your services around it. But that is not what i meant. I just said that its a chance for you to position your brand and then you reap rewards due to a highly branded position, and for the sales thereafter i am not very sure what it is. Just that a well known brand sells."

Well by now my friend will probably have ran out of the cafe screaming and tearing his hair out.

I think he is not wrong and i am not all right. Open Source to many is still a mystery and a misnomer. If it is so open how come it is so hard to understand with regard to its business model and product model?

As for me, i always consider Open Source as none of the above. To me in my http://www.red1.org/ it came about treating Open Source as a guinea pig for the branding of my philosophy:

Information is Free - You have to know,
People are Not - You have to pay,
Contributors are Priceless - You have to be.

You see, i am an artist. On forums that is. I love provoking, encroaching and devising ways to use the threaded online medium to gain fame and flame, friend and foe, all for a nice kick and high rating. What i do with it is none of anyone else business. It is all mine. I get calls from al corners asking me to sell my time or services to implement the Open Source i seemed to relish in (http://www.adempiere.org/) but i often turn them down. For one, i am not that an expert, and i really hate work.

If i ever accept work, it is due to the number of guns from bankers held to my head. And as soon as i settled my debts, i am back to blissful unemployability. Nothing beats the freedom of painting as i please on my digital canvass. It has drawn oohs and ahhs. I know the yawns are hidden well.

Back to Open Source. It is just a damn good excuse to make me ADempiere's Leader enroute a globe-trotting evangelist. On that score, i will promise to be more coherent if there is a business class ticket and a formal letter of invitation to speak to an eager audience.