I and HereBeDragon were discussing about the various kinds of people we have in the Indian FOSS community, when he started listing the different types of FOSSians.
Here’s a 5-point classification of FOSSites. What type are you?
a)The Diehards – They are firm believers in FOSS philosophy and will not accept anything other than FOSS and sometimes feared to be fanatics too.
b)The Dedicated – They are dedicated to FOSS and are also believers of FOSS philosophy, but are not fanatical. Though they personally advocate and follow FOSS, they leave the choice to others to decide for themselves.
c)The Didactics – They are one who make a lot of noise about FOSS but have little to contribute or mostly they themselves do not follow FOSS.
d)The Pragmatists – They are very practical in nature. They give the importance to solving issues than sticking on to philosophies. Though they are admirers or followers of FOSS, if they seem to have a better solution in non-FOSS they do not feel bad in implementing them.
e)The Opportunists – They do not have real interest in FOSS philosophy, but consider it as a means of gaining something or moving higher up in their professional ladder. They neither advocate FOSS nor contribute.
What Am I ? Hmm… /me is (b + d) 
What about you ? :-/
I would say I’m a D while leaning to B.
Pingback: The 5 types of FOSSites « the minds of a tuxian
I fall under B. Sometime in A, Sometime in D too!
Didn’t you notice that mostly people will go under: C?
@Kartik,
He he, so true and many will go under D as well
Is it ok to choose “all of the above”? I’ve been all of them at one time or the other.
what is FOSS philosophy? I thought it was a software development methodology. I suppose it is more comfortable if it is a philosophy – one can be a diehard believer without doing anything.
Both the BSD and GPL licenses are philosophical statements.
i would be in b+d
How many times has Richard M. Stallman watched porn in a proprietary format?
Click here for more: http://meinwords.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/is-foss-a-cult/