[nzlug] Open Source Census

[Craig Box]

>
> Why do I need to install software to answer questions in a survey? What
> are the questioners getting from this software that they cannot ask me
> to my face? Why do I have to *hunt down* the justification?


I think they are trying to prove that OSS is everywhere.  Not just in what
you knowingly download and install, but libraries used by commercial and
shareware software also. I knew I had Firefox and OpenOffice.org, but had no
idea about expat, an XML parser.

(Expat is probably installed as part of OpenOffice.org, along with things
like hsqldb and jfreechart, but my point still stands).

Lots of those Gartner-y quotes suggest that we're all running open source
even if we don't know it. If you support the concept it's nice to be able to
back that up with some evidence.  It's not the devil, it's quite possibly
being used on your computer right now.