Don’t get me wrong, I have a really, really, really high preference on everything that is Open, but when it gets to get the work done, I’ll use the software that fills my needs. I’m pragmatic; no matter if it’s free or not, Open source or not, if it solves my problem, and do it well, I’ll use it.
As an example, I used Linux for years: Suse, Slackware, Gentoo, Ubuntu, name it. I liked the fact it was Open Source, and really liked that I could build, and configure everything. At some points, I wasn’t pleased anymore for different reasons: I didn’t have much time to fix things or compile stuff each time I wanted to change an option, and wasn’t happy that my last printer didn’t have any drivers available. Since I wasn’t knowledgeable enough to create the driver myself (I know it changed a lot), and that I now wanted to have an operating system that works with no complication (nothing more than what I had on Linux or what I have on OS X right now), I moved to Windows XP. No matter if you like Windows or not, with Windows 7, XP was the most stable of them, and personally never had any big trouble. I didn’t stay with Linux because it was the cool thing to do, or because it was Open source: I moved to something else, something that was filling my need at that time. Today, I switched to OS X, for other reasons, again: it’s the best tool right now for what I’m doing. Tomorrow, it may be something else…
It’s why I worked at Microsoft: they have crappy softwares, but they also have really good one. On top of that, my job was all about Open Source, and not just for developers: I also had to educate people inside the death star. It’s also why I’m working at Mozilla right now: I believe in Open Source, in Web Standard, and over everything, in the Web! Nevertheless, I’ll use whatever tools I need to get the shit done!
