Many moons ago I tried using Windows for a week to see how the other half live. Despite my thorough openness and fairness, I still got criticized! (Well, it wouldn’t be the free software community if people didn’t, I suppose!) So, when I needed I new PC I decided to take the plunge and buy one. For the first time ever I bought a PC from a shop, instead of building it myself. Consequently, it came with Vista pre-installed. So I decided to spend a week with it to see what had changed…

People are real creatures of habit, aren’t they? It’s true, change is a stressful thing. There are all those statistics that say events like divorce and moving house are as stressful as a death in the family. However, none of those stress therapists ever predicted the suffering that it seems thousands of people are slogging through at this very minute, mouths forced open in silent screams of distress… the stress of switching from trusty, faithful first wife XP to that slinky young blonde upstart Vista. Who knew something so desirable could be so high maintenance?

My Windows XP machine went “phut” the other day. I think it isa hardware problem as it had been “phutting” more and more over the pastmonths, but now it is unusable. This is not the disaster it mayappear to be!

So Microsoft’s Vista is being launched out now to overtake the world.

The massive marketing machine is finding its way into reports, blogs and interesting TV commercials. I’ve had a look at its fancy smancy interface with its transparent window bars and 3d windows navigation and quite frankly I’ve been yawning. I’ve seen all this six months before with the Edgy release of Ubuntu. Again the FOSS movement is ahead of the curve.

The more exciting release right now has nothing to do with Microsoft.

Microsoft has always had excellent timing. They know when to announce a product; they know when to begin grass-roots movements to build hype for a product; they know when to create an alliance; they know when to break an alliance. They have missed some marks, that’s true. They almost missed the internet boat, but were able to quickly recover with the licensing of Spyglass, Inc’s browser. Microsoft’s best timing, though, has always been when and where to spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.

And that brings us to Novell.

Imagine you are in the boardroom, asked by the president of the company to fix his laptop during a critical presentation. You reach for your handy knoppix on a flash, and set it off to boot, so ready to proudly display the power of freedom during this critical presentation, when, already too late, you remember; that darn startup sound!

All free nations in the world today recognize certain basic principles, such as freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the freedom of privacy. These values that we all share were articulated by and fought for by people such as Voltaire, Jefferson, and Bolivar. This common heritage of freedom is today under attack by those who wish to turn the clock back on human progress.