The purpose of this story is to give you a idea of what the open source software world is, how it operates, and why it exists.

A little story

Imagine that one company in NZ had a patent on a particular shape of power point - only they could manufacture it. Then imagine, in order to convince people to install their patented power points in their new homes, the same company gave away the power points to new home builders and put out a range of cheap but servicable appliances which all had the appropriate matching power plug to fit the patented power points. So heaps of people installed the patented power points, went out and bought the nice electric jugs and lava lamps and TVs and CD players with the special plugs and were happy... for a while.

Now imagine you were one of the people who bought a house with the proprietary plugs. Not long after moving in, you decided that you wanted to add a few new points. Your power requirements had changed with new additions to the family and the mother-in-law moving into the spare room. To your annoyance, when you went out to buy a power point from the local hardware shop, the ones that were so cheap when you were building your house now cost a bundle! There were some different looking ones that cost 1/4 as much, but they had a different shape that you didn't think would fit any of the power plugs on your appliances. Ouch.

Just to make things worse, new sorts of DVD players, portable music players, cellphones, and a host of other cool new electronic devices started trickling into the country from other markets. Around the same time, it emerged that the power point company also happened to have a patent on the power plug, not just on the power points - which meant that in order to get a DVD player to play in your house with the patented power points, you'd have to buy the player from an "accredited" dealer who was certified to put the proper power plugs onto the devices. To become "accredited", an electronic gear manufacturer had to pay the power point company for the privilege of using the patented power plugs... and guess what - their DVD players cost heaps. Amazingly, given what you paid for them, they weren't very reliable, but when they worked they played all the movies you wanted to see. Well, they worked as long as you were willing to sit through special annoying ads celebrating the power point company's many contributions to "better living" before every movie...

At this point, you might feel that you were over a barrel: now you have these patented proprietary power points all over your home, and to switch them would mean the inconvenience of ripping them all out and then paying for some other company's points which might or might not be patented, too... To make it more difficult, lots of your friends who were in the same boat were telling you that you were blowing things out of proportion - "they're just power points" many would say... "you've got more important things to worry about"... but still, it bugged you. An expensive and uncertain decision unless you spent a lot of time doing research. So you, like most people, decide it's better to stay with the "devil you know".

But then it suddenly emerges that a few enterprising people in your area, sick of being hog-tied by the power point company and willing to ignore their friends' recommendations to "chill out about the power points", had learned quite a bit about power points. You thought they came across as a bit odd, but they seemed harmless enough. Rather than make illegal knock off power points which some people might do in response to the power point dilema, they thought it would be fun to work around the problem - to come up with a better power point cleverly worked around the patent issues of the proprietary power point company.

They did some research and found that an international standard existed for power points that didn't involve any patents - what's more, after sending away to an overseas standards body for the plans they could get all the required parts to make from local suppliers at a very low price. As a result, they could manufacture these things and sell them at cost - a small fraction of what the other power point companies were charging. You realise that you recognise these "upstart" power points from the local hardware store - you know, the ones that were 1/4 the price.

Then it also emerges that schools - in an effort to cut costs - had started using these standard power point several years previous. And for use in schools, the local power point experts had developed a very simple, elegant modification to the design which made the points much safer for children to use, but didn't affect the plug requirements or anything else. Your kids knew how to use them already.

Even better - using these power points suddenly made available to you a raft of electronic devices from overseas that used the appropriate power plugs for the unpatented power points - sure, maybe you had to mail order them initially because the distribution channels were still immature, but they were cheaper (thanks to not having to come from "accedited" suppliers) and better, because in the world market place, they were facing real competition on features, quality, pricing, etc. Within months, a couple enterprising local business people, sensing an opportunity, started importing spare parts and providing cost-comparable servicing for these imported electronic devices greatly reducing your risk of buying the gear with the patent-free plugs.

So, who the heck would stay with the proprietary power points? Only people who'd invested heaps in electronic devices that had the proprietary power plugs. Everyone else started shifting. The move accelerated very quickly when the clever folks who introduced the unpatented power points found that they could mould unpatented plugs as well, and make a pretty good, satisfying living converting over people's electronic devices with the proprietary plugs - even with the cost of conversion, people were saving money - and they had the freedom to use whatever electronic devices they wanted.

If the above makes logical sense to you, then you have a pretty good idea of how the computer industry currently works... and the role that the open standards, open source software and developers, and open source-focused businesses like Egressive play.

If you want an even more compelling story, we encourage you to get yourself a coffee and have a read of this: In the beginning there was the command line, written by award winning author of Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash among others, Neal Stephenson.