It's about freedom; it's about choice. Which do you choose for your computer: something from Microsoft, something from Apple, or do you dare to install and configure an Open Source operating system?
Some will find it hard to believe that I ran for awhile something besides Linux or Unix on my main computer. After all I've written on the subject, one would think I had had a near-religious devotion to Free/Open Source Software (FOSS). I sadly admit that was partially true. There is a particular atmosphere among FOSS users, which includes a whole set of unspoken assumptions.
One of those assumptions is that the constant, frenetic pace of development is a good thing. Closely related is the urge to update continually with each incremental release of something. Outsiders watching this get the sense of a never-ending wild ride. Individual users are like surfers struggling to stay in front of a wave always threatening to wash over them. Using Linux can consume a lot of your life. If you stop too often to consider whether you really need the next version of this or that project, you'll miss out on the announced new release of some other project of interest. From the outside, it almost seems a kind of madness.
This is not a criticism, but an explanation. To debate over which is the best OS is silly on the face of it. Soldiers seized with bloodlust will not operate much on logic, but on training and experience. Political zealots will use a narrowly focused logic only as it supports their agenda. To lose one's self in the cause is what we count on in both war and politics, because it is a matter of group survival and victory. The attempt to debate which OS you and I should run on our computers is an individual matter, where we must consider our own interests. That means balancing all the issues that matter to us, knowing we will never reach Computing Nirvana. Everything we do will be a compromise, with numerous shades of gray. In this whole debate, as with most debates, observers tend to want things in black and white. "Don't make me think!" Sorry, I won't accommodate that wish.
First, I still contend that much of what Gates and company do, and much of their motivation, is not good for the average user. That's not to say they are devotees of Satan, at least not knowingly. Rather, they are devotees of wealth. Their god, as it were, is the same god of any large corporation: profit, and the power to increase profits. That power-seeking includes such things as turning associated products into commodities ("commiditizing"), restricting competition, and building consumer dependence.
Secondly, if MS did nothing right, they wouldn't have gotten this far in the first place. One place where MS has invested a great deal of resources is in usability. Not the sort of usability that answers every need, but is simply adequate. While we recognize that such a huge project as the Windows operating system must of necessity include flaws throughout, they are not sufficient to drive the consumer away. There are a few things they do exceedingly well: fonts display, ease of use, accommodating more kinds of hardware, and a measure of consistency. Of course, Mac is even better on fonts and consistency, but uses pretty much its own pricey hardware.
Finally, we have to realize that even the Borg-ish power of Microsoft will not permit Gates to rule all the world of computing. There are simply too many things Windows does poorly, some areas of computer use in which it can never compete. If the things Windows does poorly ever become a serious threat to the user, its advantages won't matter much. For example, logic precludes having ease of use along side security and privacy. It's in the nature of computing that you will emphasize one or the other, and any particular balance is struck on the basis of purpose. Unix is inherently secure and cranky to work with. Windows is easy to use and wide open. Linux tends to be somewhere in between these days, as user/consumer demand brings pressure in the direction of easy use. Mac is playing a wholly different game. Even in this, we would have to discuss at length what constitutes "ease of use."
Generalizations are a necessity in our world, or we could say nothing of importance outside our own narrow realm of existence. One of the major complaints against MS is the tendency to redefine the generalizations of computer connectivity in defiance of accepted standards. It is widely recognized they use their market dominance to introduce a break from independent standards, while hiding the technical details from their users. If MS can manage enclosure of the entire spectrum of computer use, they can ensure their future stream of income. It becomes incumbent on those to whom independence of standards matters to breach the walls of this dominance. Keeping the issues before at least part of the user audience becomes a major undertaking.
If your primary call to arms, in promoting Open Source, is that independence is a virtue in itself, and that the power of the individual to choose is de facto a good thing, then you must also accept the rightness of choices you wouldn't make for yourself. Otherwise, you are merely competing, and you cannot claim any virtue or moral high ground. Making everyone accountable to someone else is the one guarantee we have that no one gets away with enslaving others. I contend our first obligation in promoting freedom is promoting and maintaining the independence of computing standards, as primarily expressed in Internet use. If any corporation -- let along Microsoft -- or any government agency ever gains ascendancy in regulating the Internet, then we have lost. In our favor is the inertia inherent in any large collection of people, a factor often forgotten or ignored in political discussion.
This is not about bringing Microsoft to an end, nor even the closed source model of software development. If those are your true goals, you can't get there from here. We first have to put commercial software companies in their place, by limiting their power to dominate. Microsoft doesn't even own the media; even less so do they own the loyalty of all their users. They do indeed dominate the former. The latter is anybody's guess, because no one can define the term "average user" for the purpose of an accurate polling sample of attitudes. However, we don't need that in order to capture whatever loyalty exists.
Capturing loyalty is complicated enough without opposing forces. Our enemy is both the slavers and the apathy of the slaves. We first need to understand the slavers. It is the nature of bureaucracy to streamline operations by choosing, on whatever basis, a single standard for every level of the process. While a market entity will obviously be more flexible simply by reason of what "market" means, a government naturally rejects such things. Accommodation is what subjects do, not rulers. We of the freedom movement gain by making computers work for most people, most of the time. We don't do that by propagandizing how bad their current OS is, implying they are fools for using it. We do it by helping them overcome its limitations and weaknesses, while making it standards compliant. Thus, for us to accommodate those who chose the dominant OS is a necessity. Some Open Source projects recognize this by releasing versions compiled for Windows and Mac. The other half of the battle has already been mentioned in passing: informing as many users as possible. To some degree, we advocates of computer independence must meet them where they are.
This is my vision, and in pursuit of it my research for a time was in seeking ways to make Windows work. Say what you will, but on my personal machine XP was easier to install, was less troublesome in hardware detection and setup, tookl up less hard drive space for the same work, and it seemed less demanding on the hardware. That's just the reality in some cases, and for people like me with little choice in hardware profiles, you can be sure it's a major issue. So under the working assumption that Windows was my field of operations for that time, I was working to insure others in a similar situation can benefit from what little computer savvy I can claim.
Leaving behind the issue of platform choice, I still maintain a preference for FOSS. With every release of Windows, the hacker community has, with time, found ways to bypass MS's attempts to control use of their OS. The past year or so has seen the release of a whole stream of fixes and work-arounds for all sorts of issues. In spite of efforts to hide them, options within the OS that diminish dependence on MS are now widely published. ET doesn't actually need to phone home to work. For every security issue, the first step is to ignore the bundled applications. Use the OS, but nothing else they offer. Never starting IE or OE (or simply uninstalling them, another hidden option) appears to take care of about 90% of the announced security vulnerabilities. For the rest, there are a host of free and independently produced utilities that moot them: real firewalls, anti-virus packages, turning off insecure services, deleting or modifying foolish registry entries, and so forth. So far, it seems there is no requirement for me to submit to an update EULA giving MS intrusive permissions they didn't gain just from installing the OS.
Why go to all this trouble? If Windows is so much hassle to secure, why run an OS insecure by design? First, Windows XP is more compatible with some hardware. I don't get much choice in hardware; I take what I can afford at the time money is available. Since XP was included as OEM for my used hardware, choosing it entailed no extra costs for me. Secondly, I can get today for Windows better applications I need for my work, and FOSS is still somewhere behind. That's changing even now. Still, the onus of struggle is on the rebels, those seeking to dethrone the dominant power in desktop computing. That's reality. FOSS coders need not meet standard commercial applications feature for feature. Most users don't even know half the features of, for example, MS Office for Windows. But if MS is easier to use for the features they know, OpenOffice loses.
My choice, at any given time, is based on what I need to get my work done. If that seems to change next week, then I'll install whatever seems right at that time. On the other hand, frequent changes waste time and run the risk of losing work that somehow escaped backup. Experiment, test, investigate the possibilities. Then choose.
Ed Hurst
updated 20 April 2004
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