Worthy but untimely distractions
I spoke with my brother Steven tonight. He is not a big fan of Microsoft, and called to ask my opinion about installing Linux on his home PC. Normally, I am delighted to hear about people who wish to be free from Microsoft’s (intentional or not) complete domination of the home PC market (or the world). But, as I thought about Steve’s question, I found that I could not, in good conscience, endorse his goal. Why?
Whether we like it or not, Microsoft is personal computing for most of us. We run its operating system; we use its office suite; we view mail with its (security hole ridden) email client; we use its browser. But even more, other software vendors (or should I say licensors) write software only for Microsoft’s operating system. In Steven’s case, he relies a great deal on Windows-based music packages and equivalent packages are simply not available (yet) for Linux. Thus it is in Steven’s best interests to postpone his operating system rebellion and use the tools that he has to do the work he needs to do.
I tell this story because I think that the move to Linux is a worthy action, but an untimely distraction for Steven as it would be for me. I would dearly love to make my entire software computing environment free, but there are other things that have a prior and better claim on my time and effort. I should attend to those first rather than pursue the worthy cause of freeing myself from Microsoft’s monopolistic grip.
Of course, I do try and use non-Microsoft, open source and free software whenever I can. Thus, I draft my blog entries using XEmacs; my browser and email client of choice are Mozilla; and my office suite is OpenOffice.org. There are some things that I can do. I just can’t let them get in the way of the more important things.
