[Nottingham] Getting off Microsoft software

[Martin]

Folks,

An interesting link:


Interview with Tony Bove, Author of "Just Say No to Microsoft"
Sunday, 16 October 2005

http://www.xyzcomputing.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=453&Itemid=26

"My goal is to provide a road map for using alternatives, or the 
equivalent of a "12-step method" for getting off Microsoft software (as 
if it were an addiction). Of course, like any addiction or habit, people 
have to want to stop; this book helps them realize why they'd want to 
stop and what they can use instead."


Rather a good article surrounding the book. Nicely follows quite a few 
of my own personal views and observations.


For those too busy to read the full article, a few snippets are:

My contribution to the computing world is a road map to alternate 
routes, so that you can avoid the well-worn, traffic-laden, 
virus-targeted Microsoft path. I believe I have been successful in 
providing that; I'm certainly using the road map myself.

Who is your target audience for the book?

This book is for people who think for themselves, who don’t buy the 
party line. It's for people who recognize the necessity of functioning 
in this Microsoft-dominated world but are willing to try alternatives. 
Even if you’re a regular user of Windows or Microsoft Outlook, you can 
learn how to keep from suffering security breaches, malevolent viruses, 
clumsy applications, and misleading help messages. At the very least, 
you can learn how to attain some level of damage control when using 
Microsoft systems and software.

Don’t think Mac or Linux users are immune. You still have to deal with 
the Microsoft world ...


Rather than encouraging a choice in computer hardware grounded in 
innovation, Microsoft’s DOS fostered a choice grounded in copycat 
engineering.

All efforts to standardize document formats (including Adobe’s Portable 
Document Format, or PDF) were sabotaged by Microsoft's inability to 
"print" to those formats. ... until after the Internet hit and put 
Microsoft off-balance.

The OpenOffice.org package includes the source code, too. Not that I 
know what to do with source code, because I’'m not a software engineer, 
but it's comforting to know that nothing in the application is hidden, 
nothing is secret. The source code is right there, and thousands of 
programmers have already pored over it, looking for bugs.

Free is a powerful motivator. So is the feeling of security.

I don’t use any anti-virus programs and don’t need any spyware protection.

I think that if Windows held only 50% of the market, we'd all be better 
off. I am not opposed to Microsoft code, just Microsoft business practices.

Microsoft designs its software products -- especially Outlook and 
Exchange -- to lock people into using its other software products and to 
continue paying for updates and security packs, under the pretext of 
offering a safer computing environment. Standards do exist to help keep 
email safer, and many email programs adhere to these standards. The 
problem is, Microsoft "improved" and extended those standards and 
integrated Outlook with Office to entice its captive customer base into 
using other Microsoft applications -- all at the expense of security.

Tell others how to get by on a no-Microsoft diet. They'll thank you when 
their systems act in a more regular fashion.

Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier 
Foundation, said it best in his blog 
(http://blogs.osafoundation.org/mitch/): "Ultimately, positive action to 
rein in Microsoft will be taken when the general public realizes they're 
being had; that as a society we're being forced to pay huge costs in 
lost productivity due to the unnecessary difficulty of using computers; 
and when the basically amoral and ruthless character of Microsoft's 
leadership is graphically revealed."


Cheers,
Martin

-- 
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Martin Lomas
martin at ml1.co.uk
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