Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Free Software?

Marius Andreiana at freshmeat:

The plethora of Free Software applications available today, none working perfectly, is a problem which stands in the way of major adoption of Linux on the desktop. In order to conquer the desktop, we have to stand united.

It’s an interesting editorial that I can’t say that I agree with 100%, but it does raise some good points.  There are a hell of a lot of different free software programs/packages that do almost exactly the same thing in completely different ways.

From the article:

Choice is good, but it’s frustrating when none of the alternatives works properly.

The references from the article are also worth checking out:

• Mob Software: The Erotic Life of Code
• Things You Should Never Do
• The New Methodology
• Agile modeling
• Managing Projects the Open Source Way
• A Conversation with Martin Fowler