Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Can Open Source Topple The Microsoft Monopoly?

I've been using Microsoft Software since 1980 and this is the first time in the history of computers that I think Microsoft is in a position to be easily toppled.

Who will topple Microsoft, will it be the next big computer company with a "Windows Killer"?

Nope.

It will be FREE software.

It will be OPEN software.

It's already here today, there's no waiting, you can download it all for free!

Free Desktop Software

It's called Ubuntu, which is a beautiful African word that I believe loosely translates into "Kick Microsoft's Ass".

As a matter of fact, Dell offers Ubuntu as an installation option right alongside of Windows 7 which costs extra!

Way to go Dell, they GET IT!

Ubuntu even has specific versions for Netbooks and Servers, so they GET IT too!

With Ubuntu you don't need to shell out big sweaty bags full of money to buy office productivity software, entertainment software, anti-virus, or even programming languages because it's all FREE!

Can you say it with me?

FREE!

What did I say?

FREE!

What do we like?

FREE!

So why are you still feeding the Microsoft monopoly machine when everything you need is:

FREE!


It's probably because you're just too filthy fucking rich and you can afford to give money away, right?

Mostly I'm talking about people that use computers like an appliance, that would just as easily be happy if their Tivo could browse the web and handle email.

These people using appliance computers are, in my opinion, what Ubuntu is all about.

Instead of Internet Explorer and Outlook you'll use Firefox and Thunderbird, or Chrome, you'll barely notice the difference except Firefox has lots of add-ons which are cool.

One major difference you'll notice switching to Ubuntu is the lack of MS Office's Trial which costs money to use after the trial period expires.

Instead you'll have Open Office which is FREE! and never expires and never requires an upgrade fee, what an amazing concept!

Free Mobile Software

Are you holding a MyTouch, Hero or Droid?

It has an OS called Android and is in all the hottest phones on the market.

Guess what, these phones aren't closed environments like iPhone or Windows CE and you can even program them for FREE!

None of this Windows CE proprietary bullshit, you can write in JAVA or script in PYTHON.

Getting the idea we're weaning ourselves off Microsoft?

What about computer professionals?

Some of you that are computer professionals all invested in the Microsoft landscape will come along bitching about how all these free software programs aren't so good and doesn't do everything you want.

You know what?

Most of this stuff would've been state of the art as little as 4-5 years ago, some of it even exceeds the state of the art, and the more people use the free stuff the more pressure and resources gets put on the free stuff to evolve faster.

Stop shelling money out for MSDN (mega waste) and big expensive tools like SQL Server when MySQL is FREE and using ASP.NET when you can get PHP for FREE!

You can program in C, C++, PERL, PYTHON, PHP, and so forth, and it's all FREE!

All the online documentation, support and tools, FREE!

So remind me again, why do you continue to support Microsoft?

Just because your computer came pre-installed with Windows?

Lame excuse, just pop in an Ubuntu DVD today and stop the madness!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ohhhhhhhh that is a hilarious viewpoint Brad. Enjoy constantly running an antivirus program in the background while I can run several programs concurrently, an activity which defeats most versions of windows. Enjoy defragging your machine while I busily and productively do whatever the fuck I want. Enjoy getting constantly assraped by viruses. Enjoy cryptic update procedures that might update your computer... maybe. Enjoy the knowledge that, without your consent, some rootkit has probably been deployed and your computer has just turned into a server for sending horseporn spam to fucking Moldova. You don't care, right? All you want is to play games. Because that's all Windows is good for. Enjoy having to rely on expensive software to perform basic system tasks, like "OOOH I wonder what is running besides these 800 versions of svchost.exe and whatever the OS isn't telling me about, I have to buy some program, sight-unseen, which purports to do this, because the overpriced OS doesn't come with tools that are actually worth a shit".

I could go on.

Assuming you are a troll, you should already know that Linux isn't "designed"- it evolves. The glee I feel in telling you to go fuck your mother is tempered somewhat by your inability to present a cogent argument above and beyond "BAWWW MY PUSSSY HURTS!"

tl;dr: hey Brad, fuck you and the proprietary horse you rode in on

Jonas said...

What a nice article...I hold a similar speech at least once a week. Linux is coming - people are clever - I see it everyday.