It has for long been argued — in several different places in fact — that one of the principal adoption barriers for Free software to face is corruption. The obstacles to clear are not purely technical.

"The lack of personal tax software, like the lack of commercial games, is sometimes cited as a clear indication that Linux is not yet ready for ‘prime time’. To be honest, I haven’t the foggiest idea as to why this is such a ‘tell-tale’ sign."

Dear Miguel,
Read your post. One question immediately springs to mind.Why?
Looking forward to Microsoft subverting an International Standards Organizations submission process, and beginning a new era of vendor lock-in and monopolistic office suites seems to be antithetical to Free and Open Source philosophy.
What happened to you Miguel, you used to be cool?

The Objective Observer wrote what appeared to be a logical argument from which he drew what he claims is a reasonable comparison... Open Source is like Terrorism. Riiiiight. Well, I decided to respectfully respond to his commentary with some specific examples of how his conclusions are inaccurate. I'm assuming he got hit with a lot of flames but I didn't want to add to it.

ITWire has a rant disguised as an opinion piece titled OLPC: one bad idea per child by Sam Varghese.

I should let it be known I have written on the OLPC XO before. All of my articles have showered it with praise. My kid wants one, I wouldn't mind tinkering a bit with it myself. So it should come as no surprise how I feel about Sam's article. Although no real point was made, I will do my best to address his comments.

A few days ago a story was posted to FSDaily with the assuming title of "Can we please stop fighting FUD with FUD?"

The article concludes by throwing down the gauntlet.

I—for one—would like to see more blogs and comments on why free software is good rather than why Microsoft is bad. So let’s start here. Your task is complete the sentence “Free software is good because…” in less than 50 words.

I pick up your gauntlet Mr Cartwright and offer my answer. Ahem...

In this installment of my series on the Top 10 Linux FUD patterns, I address two patterns that have more to do with software packages that run on the Linux platform than with the Linux OS itself. As I stated in a previous post, every believable piece of FUD has some element of truth behind it, and these two are no exception.

Linux FUD Pattern #3: With Linux, you cannot access old files or share new files with others.

Linux FUD Pattern #4: There are no good software titles for Linux.