Breaking up with Bill

[Richard Wells]

I thought you folks might find this amusing. Please read to the end. Hope
really does spring eternal.

WorldNetDaily
MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2003
WND Exclusive Commentary

Posted: October 20, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Breaking up with Bill

By Vox Day

While I would not go so far as to say that I regard computers as an absolute
necessity in life, I have to admit that if given a choice between giving up
my computers and giving up food, my first instinct would be to ask how long
you had in mind.

The Apple II was my true love, although the first computer in our house was
the original IBM PC. Thus, I was intimate with Microsoft from the beginning,
though I always had a cheater's heart. I was enamored with Apple games such
as Akallabeth, Castle Wolfenstein and Wizardry - yes, that's right, I know
my Mahalito from my Tiltowait - and my parents sent me off to college with
the original Macintosh.

I was working at a computer graphics company when Windows 3.0 was released.
We'd seen all of the previous versions, which were ugly, hard-to-use jokes,
but I can still remember after we fired up 3.0 for the first time, a few of
us looked at each other and nodded as we realized that Microsoft had finally
done just enough to give DOS-heads a reason to migrate to a graphical user
interface.

I'd already abandoned the MacOS by then, since great games like Wing
Commander and the Ultima series required DOS VGA. And I've obediently
upgraded Windows
in step with the masses, from 3.11 to 95, 98 and finally, 2000. But no more.

Now, understand that Microsoft is not a monopoly. The fact that it does a
very good job of hooking the technologically clueless makes it an astute
competitor,
not an antitrust violator. It is, nevertheless, an evil empire, and
moreover, one that is antithetical to human freedom.

Whereas Microsoft once represented freedom of choice, it now does everything
in its power to reduce one's freedom to choose. It does not give one the
ability
to choose to update one's software or not - you can update now or you can
update later, but you VILL UPDATE, HEIN! Security holes and bugs abound, but
Microsoft whispers soothing lies and insists that there's nothing to worry
about, drop $50 on Norton Anti-Virus and everything will be fine.

Even more disturbing are the routine violations of privacy that Microsoft
abets and sometimes demands. Microsoft is paving the easy path, promising
more
ease-of-use, a calmer, happier computing experience, and all that you need
to do in return is turn off your brain, hand over every detail of who you
are,
what you do and with whom you do it, then slide down the user-friendly
interface to Hell.

One week ago, after wrestling with a nasty virus that took down my entire
ISP, I'd had enough. It was the first virus I'd ever encountered despite
never
using anti-virus software, and it was the last straw as well.

It wasn't just the virus, or the thrice-weekly crashes, or the forced
upgrades or even the massive, bloated resource hog that Microsoft Office has
become.
It was the realization that Microsoft is building the Great Eye That Never
Sleeps, which, in combination with your government identification number,
will
be used to track you, verify you and determine if you are a properly
obedient little wage-serf. As Chuck D says, I rebel with a raised fist. And,
I might
add, a solitary finger.

Now determined to break out of the system or fry my machine trying, I sat
down and fired up my dual-boot system on which I'd installed Red Hat Linux a
few
months ago in a previous spasm of irritation with a serial-crashing laptop
running Windows 2000. This time, though, I chose Linux and I followed
through.
I mounted my hard drive. I got my wireless network up and running. I
downloaded my favorite browser - Opera - as well as a few other needed
sundries.

It wasn't a piece of cake, but it honestly wasn't hard and I was fully
operational by the second day. In fact, I'm writing this column on
OpenOffice.org
1.1.0 Writer, which reads and writes to all of my Word documents without a
murmur of complaint. Goodbye, sweet Bill.

Four days into Linux, my conclusion is that the casual computer user will
not be able to make the switch yet, but the power user can. And should.

I've chronicled my migration experience on my new daily blog Vox Popoli, and
I encourage you to take a glance at it if you have any interest in breaking
the chains of Microsoft and riding the Linux penguin to techno-liberty.

Follow me! Follow me to freedom!

Vox Day is a novelist and Christian libertarian. He is a member of the SFWA,
Mensa and the Southern Baptist Convention, and his weekly column is
syndicated
nationally by Universal Press Syndicate.