Open Source Operating Systems – Fighting the MS Monopoly

No, this is not board game of selling streets and houses...

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Linux and other Open Source Operating Systems offer the only legal way for poor countries and poor people and the latter not only in poor countries to use and utilize computers and the Internet.

Microsoft is also a prohibiter of recycling and reusing older PCs, which no longer work with the latest versions of Windows, as their very obsolescence is indeed caused by the demands the new Microsoft Windows versions make on computer hardware, e.g. memory size, hard drive size, etc.

Only the use of OS operating systems and Open Source software makes it possible to – legally – use secondhand PCs properly and efficiently and to save them from the “slaughterhouse” and waste.

Most so-called “obsolete” PCs are nothing of the sort, except that they are no longer “powerful” and “capable” enough to run certain new Microsoft operating system. Vista here is the prime example and culprit, as it requires new hardware left, right and center.

The greatest barrier against the uptake of Open Source software as operating systems and fpr PC applications is the very fact that even many government sites, even e-government sites, are not (fully) accessible (if at all) by Open Source operating system and other Open Source software.

Microsoft does rather have a severe stranglehold on enterprise and especially in government when it comes to computers and software.

While the European Union, and its bodies, is going up against Microsoft as regards to a number of things and in some aspects it, the EU, itself, has websites, for instance, that citizens using only non-proprietary software and Open Source operating systems cannot (fully) access and make use of.

However, the only way forward to free computing and a free Internet can be Open Source software rather than proprietary software, especially in the field of operating systems.

Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) and especially FLOSS operating systems is the only way to stop premature (no, not what you think) obsolescence of computers and the only way for the poor to join the computer age.

PCs and Laptops, as far as hardware goes and is concerned, are relatively cheap, comparatively; it is the forced upon MS operating system that makes a computer expensive.

In addition to that, Microsoft, basically, forces you to buy an individual copy of the operating system for every individual computer that you wish to install it upon (OK, I know you can install it on three, theoretically, but then you have used up the three lives that you get for the OS). Not so with Open Source software, such as Linux (and the same holds true for applications as well).

In the latter case most, if not indeed all, versions are free to download (if you want them on disc and want support with it in the form of 24/7 help then you have to pay) and free to use and your are also free to install the operating system and other Open Source software on one PC/Laptop or on thousands; this is entirely up to you. No license fee. All is free.

I know where I put my money...

© M Smith (Veshengro), May 2008