Tue 17 March 2026

One day, a farmer went to load up his station wagon to take his family to visit some friends, but found that it wouldn't start. Looking under the hood with his friends, they sadly discovered that the engine block was cracked, and there was no likelihood of an easy or inexpensive repair. After consulting with his friends and neighbors, he drove into town to buy a new station wagon for his family.

He drove up to the sparkling Dellzini dealership in his dusty-but-reliable pickup truck wearing his best jeans and flannel. He walked confidently into the showroom and flagged down one of the salesmen.

"Yes sir, how may I be of service," the salesman was polite and courteous, even though he was dressed finely in a three-piece suit, and the farmer in much humbler attire.

"Hi, I just need something simple for taking the family into town every few days, nothing too fancy."

"Of course, sir! I think you will be delighted by the Inspirzinni 9000, a very dependable and affordable family van."

The salesman opened the door of the sparkling blue six-seater. It had cup holders, seat heaters, a games and video system, the whole nine yards.

"This is really quite impressive, and seems quite comfortable," the farmer remarked. "How much?"

"Of course, we have many financing plans available, but this model starts at the low price of $75,000."

The farmer balked. For that kind of change, he would have to sell a portion of his land to afford it.

"That's surprisingly expensive," the farmer remarked. "Do you sell a lot of these?"

"Oh, thousands!" The salesman was genuinely enthusiastic. "Just last week, we fulfilled an order for a fleet of 240 of this exact model. They're used by many families and also many businesses as reliable daily conveyance."

The farmer was unsure. It was still very expensive, and he had a sneaking suspicion that the depreciation for such an expensive vehicle would be steep. "Thanks, but I think I'll shop around a bit."

"Of course, sir! Let me give you my card. I understand you're looking for a good deal for your family, but I think you'll find that we have some of the most affordable new vehicles available. I will be eagerly awaiting your call."

The farmer accepted the business card with grace, but doubts multiplied in his mind.

For the rest of the day, he visited various dealerships. Lenazzo, Packard, Pomo, all had glistening shiny autos of every size and type imaginable, all with amazing feature sets and equally astonishing prices.

Not wanting to go into unsustainable debt, the farmer started looking for deals on used cars. He found several dealerships selling recent-year models, but those weren't much less expensive than the new ones. Finally, digging through classifieds, he found people selling 5-7 year old sedans and station wagons. The price was right, only about $5-$7,000, vs the $50-$70,000 for the new vehicles. He went with a friend to inspect a seven-year-old station wagon someone was selling. There were some dings on the door panels, but the interior was recently detailed and the engine seemed to run well. He looked carefully at the title transfer documents, handed over the cash, and drove the gently-used station wagon home.

Not soon after bringing the station wagon home, he started noticing issues. While it ran fine around the neighborhood, the engine seemed to be struggling when merging onto the highway. The car had a ten-year manufacturer's warranty, but it was an ordeal to get any real help diagnosing the issues. There was always some kind of service fee in the way, and more exceptions to what was covered by the warranty than actual coverage. He was drowning in the obtuse bureaucracy and red tape of of it all.

One day when complaining about his station wagon to a family friend, he was surprised when his friend's teenage son piped up with, "Why don't you just replace the engine, since that's the part that's giving you the most trouble?" The farmer was amused with the boy's direct line of thinking. "That's a great idea, Billy, but engines cost a lot of money, and there are usually all kinds of maintenance fees and contracts to sign that are a total headache." "Actually, I was just hearing from my friends that there's a co-op that gives away new engines for free!" "Billy, how in the world can someone just give away engines? It takes hundreds of engineers to come up with the design, and there's real costs to manufacturing them." "Oh, I know that, but a bunch of people were unhappy with how expensive cars are, and how they seem designed to get slower and slower every year, so they just got together and designed their own engine! Of course, they had some help, a few of the big equipment manufacturers gave their designs to the community so they could use the community's designs in return. But they actually work really well, and I've been hearing some really good things about them!"

So, still feeling quite skeptical, but not feeling like he had too much to lose, the farmer drove his increasingly struggling and puttering station wagon to the local meet-up. There he saw dozens of cars up on jacks, and pallets of shiny new engines of various sizes and bearing various markings.

"Do you guys really just give away engines," the farmer asked, somewhat incredulously.

"We sure do," replied the overalls-clad group leader. "Just bring your car out back, we'll jack it up and put in a new engine for you. You might have to adapt to slightly different steering and handling than you're used to, but almost everyone is much happier with the outcome."

So, somewhat in a daze, but happy, he drove his station wagon into position in the line of waiting cars, and an eager technician working off-hours to help people with their cars jacked up his station wagon, dropped the puttering, self-defeating engine out, and put in a brand new, shiny Free and Open Source engine. After just a few minutes of making the necessary connections and tweaks, his car was back on its own four tires, and ready to go.

"Take it for a quick spin in the parking lot, make sure you like the way it handles and accelerates. There are a lot of different driving profiles you can try, and if you like tweaking under the hood, there's about a million settings you can mess with... or not!"

The farmer eagerly hopped into the driver's seat and turned the ignition. The engine came to life, not with a roar or a sputter, but an eager mechanical purr. He put the transmission into drive and the acceleration was immediate, and well-controlled. The handling and suspension was timed well, and it had no problem pulling tight corners in the parking lot.

"This is great, I think I'm ready to drive it home now," the farmer happily yelled at the technician over the noise of other engines starting and revving."

"Great," the technician cheerfully responded, "we'll be here next Saturday if you have any questions or want to tune your driving profile a bit more. And if you like this sort of thing, we can train you to help out with other conversions to help your neighbors as well!"

The farmer drove home in his new-to-him station wagon, thankful that he didn't break the bank by buying yet another new vehicle, or continue to suffer the poorly-performing stock engine. While he never left the farm to become a professional mechanic, he helped all of his neighbors convert their cars to smooth-running FOSSmobiles, and lived happily ever after.

Category: Tech Tagged: Computing Entertainment Ethics FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) Hobbies Humor Linux Non-religious post Non-technical post Productivity UNIX