I'm Immune To 'Open Source' and 'Free Software' In Headlines and Product Descriptions.

Yup, you read right. Headlines with open source or Free Software no longer catch my eye. You can call it [t:FOSS], you can call it [t:FLOS]... I am immune. It holds no power over me. Like the overuse of antibiotics, the overuse and abuse of these terms has created a FLOS resistant strain of human.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that people should have the 4 freedoms, or the 4 freedoms. Strange how that happened. I wonder how many people knew about the speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but that's beside the point. The pedantic approach of Free Software advocacy has made me immune to the phrase, 'Free Software'. It's like listening to clones of Richard Stallman. There's nothing new or imaginative about Free Software philosophy. It hasn't changed. It's the same overboiled corn. I like the GNU General Public License, but I don't feel the need to read the same explanation over and over and over... and I certainly don't want to write it over and over and...

And the phrase 'Open Source'. Consider Open Source Politics, and even Open Source Sex. Open Source stuffed animals, open source screaming me-mes (or memes, for those into me-mes) and so on and so forth.

Congratulations. There is no marketing power left in these phrases. They mean as little as COBOL to me now. Sure, I grok the concepts, I understand how it works, but most of the time ignorant twits use them for marketing when I ain't buying it. You can have your open source cars, your open source nipple rings, your Free Software powered sex toys, whatever you want. I ain't buying it. The power isn't in the name, it's in the product, and if you don't have a product that stands on it's own without these phrases, then you're catering to the same people who make SPAM work by clicking on the twitty little email links, those pathetic lonely souls who are so happy that they got any email that they want to redeem their existence to themselves by following links for Cialis, Lonely Housewives and Jackrabbit vibrators.

We'll have open source spam! In fact, that's exactly the problem. Open Source Spam. With Garlic. Washed down with some Open Source Beer. Gargle with Open Source mouthwash, or for those requiring more freedom, Free Mouthwash (share with a friend and conserve mouthwash).

Open Source DRM, another wonderful phrase that lobs together two buzzphrases. Huh? Yeah.

Free Software Spam, Open Source Spam, Free Software Spam and eggs, Open Source Spam and Free Biscuits, Free Open Source Spam with chitlins...

But I don't like SPAM!

Well, someone likes SPAM or it wouldn't be on the shelves, now would it? So they put together a CAN-SPAM Act. Anyone wondering why they didn't call it the CAN'T SPAM Act? Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act. Huh? It's unsolicited, you morons, and even when you massage English to get an acronym you get one that says the polar opposite of what people hoped for. No wonder SPAM is still around.

Meanwhile, everyone will be glad to know that I have FOSSFill pillows. "The closest thing to a natural synthetic" - the picture at top left, which you can see here. No kidding. Does that make it the furthest thing from an artificial synthetic?

Start looking for the next marketing buzz phrases, because it's over. The tide has come and gone, just like 'sugar free' and 'fat free' and 'new and improved'. The River Styx has been crossed by these phrases.

Maybe we could call it 'Vitamin Freedom enriched Software', or 'Crotchless Software' (as opposed to Crotchless Softwear), or 'Gee-My-Software-Smells-Terrific'.

It's time to circle the wagons. It's time to say NO to Open Source toilet paper. To Free Pornography. To Open Source Monkey Poop. To Free Barium Enemas. Become immune, or become infected...

And if you come back again, I shall taunt you a second time!