Free vs Closed (society, software)
Wade Roush | 13.08.2004 16:05 | Analysis | Technology
A society with closed propietary software is a closed society a free society uses free software, by nature... logic.
Microsoft is closed software, supports the values of a closed society.
Free Software is free software supports the value of a free society.
What is the type of society you stand for, a closed or a free one?
If you care about Freedom in a free society you should advocate for Free Software you cannot advocate for freedom being enslaved with closed propietary enslavers of software --or of any other sorts.
Or either you advocate for freedom or you advocate for slavery of society and software... and everything...
You cannot stay neutral.
Freedom is at stake. Free Software is the alternative for a Free Society using software or computers.
But there are also many other ways where freedom is under the threat of enslavers of any kinds.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/09/roush0904.asp
An Alternative to Windows
With its low cost, growing catalogue of desktop software, and backing from business, GNU/Linux could finally pry the PC market from Microsoft's grasp.
Will it always be a Microsoft Windows world?
That’s what I hoped to find out when I slicedopen the box containing the new PC I’d ordered from WalMart.com. It had a respectable 1.6-gigahertz processor, a serviceable
40-gigabyte hard drive, a CD-ROM drive, an MP3 player, and enough other software to keep me occupied for life, though supporting it all was a barely adequate 128 megabytes of RAM. Okay, I knew this chunky black box wouldn’t be the sexiest PC on my block. But that was fine,considering its paltry $278 price tag—and that I’d really ordered it for what it didn’t have: any Microsoft software whatsoever. Rather than Windows and Office, it came with Linspire 4.5, one of the many commercial versions of the Free Software GNU/Linux operating system that are now available, and a link to a website where I could download a variety of Free Software applications.
When I plugged in my Wal-Mart machine and hit the power button, I got a look at an alternate future that ought to be fueling Pepcid sales among Microsoft executives. The computer featured a glamorous new desktop screen and sophisticated control panels, help menus, and audio tutorials.
I was instantly able to connect the machine to the Internet, where I downloaded—free of charge—Free Software equivalents of the Microsoft Office programs I use every day: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Internet Explorer. The free software may not have all of Office’s bells and whistles, but the version of it I chose, Open Office, does everything I need it to do—including saving files in Word format.
The back-office world of servers and databases is no longer GNU/Linux’s most exciting frontier. Sure, GNU/Linux has gained an irreversible hold in behind-the-scenes corporate computing centers, where some 67 percent of corporate Web servers are GNU/Linux machines running Free Software software. Companies from Schwab and Merrill Lynch to L. L. Bean and Pep Boys have converted parts of their back-office operations to GNU/Linux, and IBM, Oracle, and other companies are spending millions to make their own business software run on the operating system. But over the last three years or so, the capabilities of Free Software software have finally caught up with those of Microsoft applications in the space where most human-computer interaction actually occurs: the desktop. “For the user who spends 50 percent of the time in the Web browser and another 40 percent in the mail client, the GNU/Linux desktop is already there,” says Andy Hertzfeld, an Free Software programmer famed for his work on the original Apple Macintosh operating system.
Free Software is free software supports the value of a free society.
What is the type of society you stand for, a closed or a free one?
If you care about Freedom in a free society you should advocate for Free Software you cannot advocate for freedom being enslaved with closed propietary enslavers of software --or of any other sorts.
Or either you advocate for freedom or you advocate for slavery of society and software... and everything...
You cannot stay neutral.
Freedom is at stake. Free Software is the alternative for a Free Society using software or computers.
But there are also many other ways where freedom is under the threat of enslavers of any kinds.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/09/roush0904.asp An Alternative to Windows
With its low cost, growing catalogue of desktop software, and backing from business, GNU/Linux could finally pry the PC market from Microsoft's grasp.
Will it always be a Microsoft Windows world?
That’s what I hoped to find out when I slicedopen the box containing the new PC I’d ordered from WalMart.com. It had a respectable 1.6-gigahertz processor, a serviceable
40-gigabyte hard drive, a CD-ROM drive, an MP3 player, and enough other software to keep me occupied for life, though supporting it all was a barely adequate 128 megabytes of RAM. Okay, I knew this chunky black box wouldn’t be the sexiest PC on my block. But that was fine,considering its paltry $278 price tag—and that I’d really ordered it for what it didn’t have: any Microsoft software whatsoever. Rather than Windows and Office, it came with Linspire 4.5, one of the many commercial versions of the Free Software GNU/Linux operating system that are now available, and a link to a website where I could download a variety of Free Software applications.
When I plugged in my Wal-Mart machine and hit the power button, I got a look at an alternate future that ought to be fueling Pepcid sales among Microsoft executives. The computer featured a glamorous new desktop screen and sophisticated control panels, help menus, and audio tutorials.
I was instantly able to connect the machine to the Internet, where I downloaded—free of charge—Free Software equivalents of the Microsoft Office programs I use every day: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Internet Explorer. The free software may not have all of Office’s bells and whistles, but the version of it I chose, Open Office, does everything I need it to do—including saving files in Word format.
The back-office world of servers and databases is no longer GNU/Linux’s most exciting frontier. Sure, GNU/Linux has gained an irreversible hold in behind-the-scenes corporate computing centers, where some 67 percent of corporate Web servers are GNU/Linux machines running Free Software software. Companies from Schwab and Merrill Lynch to L. L. Bean and Pep Boys have converted parts of their back-office operations to GNU/Linux, and IBM, Oracle, and other companies are spending millions to make their own business software run on the operating system. But over the last three years or so, the capabilities of Free Software software have finally caught up with those of Microsoft applications in the space where most human-computer interaction actually occurs: the desktop. “For the user who spends 50 percent of the time in the Web browser and another 40 percent in the mail client, the GNU/Linux desktop is already there,” says Andy Hertzfeld, an Free Software programmer famed for his work on the original Apple Macintosh operating system.
Wade Roush
Comments
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the proletarian are stupid
13.08.2004 21:58
but lets face it, most people are lamo's. most of my activist friends LOVE the "concept" of linux but can not see the point in spending days (if not weeks) of their precious activist time in trying to learn an O/S which contra to popular mythology is NOT USER FRIENDLY. M$ Windows, is a lot of bad things, but remember that Linux is the "Son of UNIX" (R), and UNIX(R) is powerful, but not userfriendly. That why M$ was able to "capitalise" on that niche (i.e. the user friendly niche). When Windows was released it was hailed with Olive leaves as the saviour from UNIX, people loved it! you didn't need a degree in software engineering to use it! it was - user friendly (if not limited and unstable).
the *nix clones will only gain mainstream popularity if they become more userfriendly, the average joe just doesn't have the time to spend learning massive amounts of computer philosophy, protocols, languages, modules, system architecture, kernel design/module, etc.
let us not skirt around the issue: *nix clones are made by uber-geeks, and these geeks (like the DOS geeks!) *like* it difficult.
utopian dreams