Choosing correctly now, to be able to continue choosing later

This is the first time I have a blog and this is my first post in a blog, ever! I hope we enjoy (yes, both of us) this experience and we can achieve the objective of this blog: share information, talk about technology, being like a virtual bistro, where people can meet others and have a nice chat about interesting things.

Well, I was thinking about how I have come here. I thought about this blog during some time, I found a friend who encouraged me to do that (thanks Doug), I chose a blog name, I chose a blog service (blogspot), I used a computer with an operational system which I had already chosen, with a browser chosen by myself years ago, and son on... To be able to choose something is really, really important. But the best is that I could change my operational system, my browser, even my blog provider and I would still be able to have a blog and be here writing this text. Can you realize how cool is that?

Of course, every change has a price. But this price must be affordable. In every project I work, I always try to make correct choices (when I have this opportunity) to preserve the right of change, or the right of choose something different later. I know you do the same. But, sometimes, IT people, who are paid to make right choices for a company, design a kind of IT structure that will never allow that company to change in the future. I am talking about decide among different software solutions, design approaches, hardware specifications and all of these IT stuff. Sometimes an easier solution now, means a dark future.

Yes, I am talking about free software, open source, open standards, good design patterns. Of course you can choose a closed solution, if it fits better to your needs. We have to choose the best. Your company may consider that closed solution the best for company's needs. Sometimes that closed and expensive software can have unique features that your company really needs. In this case, I encourage you to choose this solution. But, in 99% of time, choosing open standards and open source is the best to the future. I know this is not only about open source, closed source. There are many other things you should consider, like support, costs of changing, design approach, training, and so on. But even considering that, I still believe open is better. Nowadays, almost everything has support. And if it is open, you have access to source code.

I am not defending open source software. I am defending freedom of choice. And I think open source software means freedom of choice. Of course I have my preferences (yes, I use linux!). And I support everything that shares knowledge. But this is not about philosophy. This is about business. And, is this area, things can change quickly. It is better to you to make the right choice now, to still be able to choose in the future.