Windependence Day

An unknown reader points us to the Windependence Day contest sponsored by DesktopLinux. Cute idea, and I'm sure some people have exciting stories of battling the talking paperclip...

Comments

July 14th: The Storming of Redmond

[boa13]

And on July 14th, join us as we storm the Redmond stronghold and cut the head of the evil king of the Microsoft Kingdom. The storming of Redmond will symbolize, for all citizens of Linuxdom, liberty, democracy and the struggle against all forms of oppression!

Misnomer

[ObviousGuy]

What about a Sundependence Day? Or a Vaxdependence Day? Or a Aixdependence Day?

More systems are leaving traditional Unix for Linux than are leaving Windows for Linux.

How about....

[simetra]

Focusing all this energy on creating replacements for the apps that keep us tied to Windows?

For me to run Linux on my main PC at work, I need specific things: A Groupwise client, a Novell client, a pcAnywhere type thing to check on remote systems which cannot be replaced by Linux because of the apps that must run on them... ? These things would go a lot further than a doorprize, though free stuff is always good.

Re:How about....

[pete-classic]

You are incorrect about what is tying you to Windows. It is your dependence on proprietary communication protocols and file formats.

The only way to "kick the habit" and to bring any real competition back to the SW industry is to only use software that interchanges data in standard formats.

In the mean time, many dedicated OSS developers are fighting the losing fight of trying to create reverse-engineered software for many of the more popular proprietary formats and protocols. God bless 'em.

-Peter

One question though...

[The_Shadows]

If Indenpendence Day is ID4....
Does that make Windependence Day WD-40?

Definition?

[sheepab]

Windependance day - The day hoards of slashdotters and Linux fans alike gathered to battle that EVIL paper clip. And what did they do? Well, heh, Ill tell you what they did, but it wasnt pretty. When they got ahold of the paper clip, they grabbed ahold of him at each and...and they....they....STRAIGHTENED HIM!!!

Windependence Day, my story.

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently switched. Just my laptop, for now...

My company volunteered for a BSA audit some months ago.

We were short some licenses; we rectified the situation before sending our report back to the BSA, indicating while we had been short some licenses, we were currently in compliance...

This overage involved approximately 10% of our client machines...

We relaxed, thinking we'd done good ethically and morally, by owing up to our discretion and paying for it...

Then we were sued...

Not for the the 10% of our clients that were out of license...

For a sum equal to the entire -retail- value of all BSA represented software at our organization...

Paid for yesterday, or three years ago, or five, or more...

Essentially, they want us to pay for every piece of BSA software (we currently use) twice...

My Windependence day happened a month ago...

Just my laptop...

25 machines on our network use mission critical MS-only systems...

That's less that 3%...

Last month MS lost 1 customer...

Just my laptop...

The other 900+ systems on our network...

Well...

They're good for now...

Windependance != Freedom, it seems

[Phil Hands]

I think it's a shame that most of the prizes are partly or completely non-free software.

It brings to mind what I believe is a translated polish proverb:

A change of leaders is the joy of fools.

To exchange one set of proprietary terms & conditions for another, even if the new ones are a lot less aggravating, when one could instead have grasped Freedom in perpetuity, is a wasted opportunity in my opinion.