Ah, how the mighty have fallen. In what must have been gross oversight, Red Hat is pitching proprietary software on its website under the banner of "No vendor lock-in." The way Red Hat and IBM make it appear, simply running one's software on an open platform like Linux magically removes the proprietary lock-in of the application.

The non-technical public will care very little about access to the source, not realising what degree of freedom this guarantees to them, even if they never look at the source themselves. Same with open data standards. Why change or even care if all the world seems to use the same 'standard' of some proprietary software package, right?

"Vendor lock-in has become the primary problem for IT decisions in general and Free Software adoption in particular. It distorts the market and denies Free Software solutions equal competition on the merits. The problem has been that many lock-ins are invisible, for example reliance on proprietary protocols or needing to use certain document formats.

Could your company become a victim of vendor lock-in? If you rely entirely on proprietary software, you very well could be. What exactly is this vendor lock-in of which I speak? It is a way of ensuring that you, the consumer, will only be able to use specific products as set forth by select manufacturers.

I work with Quickbooks Point of Sale which is considered, by most, to be the de facto standard of Point of Sale systems. But for those clients that don’t have the budget to afford such a system, I have to turn to other choices. Those who need a simpler inventory/POS system, and want this system to run on the Linux operating system, what is the best option? One choice is LemonPOS.

Time after time we warned that with the arrival of Windows Vista comes a novel lock-in strategy. It must not be ignored. Proprietary and patent-encumbered technology will be named “open” and then gradually extended. It is a trap which is disguised by disinformation and third parties like Novell and Ecma.

A contest will soon go underway to see which operating system is more secure: Linux, Windows, or Mac OS X. It should be a fun contest that isn't taken too seriously.

In another assault on open access and free (libre) science, Feynman's work is being seized by a proprietary software vendor and wrapped in proprietary formats.

Memos for your Boss that create awareness of the possible pitfalls and caveats of proprietary software plus the proposal of open source software and its ability to prevent vendor lock-in situations when using proprietary programs.