OPEN SOURCE VS. OLIGOPOLY:

RIGHT HERE IN YOUR MORNING PAPER

I've been fiddling with Open Source office productivity items for about the last six months.

Several Open Sources have asked me to Beta Test products and I've enjoyed that (sometimes). With that background, I read today's Whig with interest. There was one article about Microsoft's big rollout and another about the Open Source Counterculture. It's amazing all the methods Sun Microsystems thinks up to torture Microsoft.

The only advice I can give regarding Shareware, Freeware and Open Source Products is to be your own beta tester. Don't go for somebody's whole bundle just because one program works really well for you.

Specifically, make really sure the Open Source product doesn't inject spyware into your system. Many of the really spiffy email bundles are, themselves a form of spyware. One of the major freeware spyware cleaners is, itself, spyware.

Test this stuff when you have time to really use it and make sure your spyware and virus protection is updated before you download any of it.

Have fun and be careful out there.