The Value of Open

(I found this ancient draft, last edited in January 2012. It looks pretty solid for its time, and potentially still relevant, so with that in mind, here it is...)

I met the internet over a decade ago, as an idealistic teen.  Linux was a rising star, so when I got a computer for college, I found a builder who was willing to sell systems with Windows 98 and Red Hat Linux side-by-side.  In those bygone days, the 2.2 kernel was near the end of its life, but USB support was backported while we waited for 2.4.  (I'm sure other things were, as well, but that is the one that had the most impact on my USB scanner.)  I connected my DIN hand-me-down-and-down-and-down keyboard from the old 486 I had been using to a PS/2 converter and joined the Future with my new machine.

I believed in everything about open source back then.  We even had proof: Linux! and Red Hat! We were totally not chasing taillights!  What could possibly be wrong with our utopia?