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FSF Attacks Windows 7's "Sins" In New Campaign
CWmike writes "The Free Software Foundation today launched a campaign against Microsoft Corp.'s upcoming Windows 7 operating system, calling it 'treacherous computing' that stealthily takes away rights from users. At the Web site Windows7Sins.org, the Boston-based FSF lists the seven 'sins' that proprietary software such as Windows 7 commits against computer users. They include: Poisoning education, locking in users, abusing standards such as OpenDocument Format (ODF), leveraging monopolistic behavior, threatening user security, enforcing Digital Rights Management (DRM) at the request of entertainment companies concerned about movie and music piracy, and invading privacy. 'Windows, for some time now, has really been a DRM platform, restricting you from making copies of digital files,' said executive director Peter Brown. And if Microsoft's Trusted Computing technology were fully implemented the way the company would like, the vendor would have 'malicious and really complete control over your computer.'"
... I'm frankly getting sick of the FSF. This latest stupid campaign reads like it was written by some petulant teenager without the first clue as to the realities of life and it tars the rest of us who support (and in my case actually write) OSS with the same idiotic uncompromising brush.
Message to Stallman - close source will be around after you've retired from your cosy ivory tower paid-by-the-taxpayer college job so get over it, learn to live with it and stop making other OSS advocates look and sound like immature fools.
I really agree with this point. People learn Excel instead of spread sheets. The problem is, give them another spread sheet, or Excel with a new interface, and their world melts. But also it is a learning computers/programming question. I also think Windows is not as a nutritious platform to learn from. When I was growing up, computers where relatively open, or at least the Acorn was, nearly everything was a mix of BASIC and ARM code. The Acorn was itching to be programmed. A disproportion of programmers I have worked with cut their teeth on the Acorn as a child. Where are our replacements coming from? Uni? I think the problems of learning programming purely from the education system are well documented here, not saying they are all crap, but there is certainly no shortage of those that are. Very few Windows kids seem to come out programmers. Linux is even more nutritious platform, more so then platforms like the Acorn ever where. Not just because everything is open but because of its rich server heritage. The openness is not just in the source, but in documents and books explaining how parts work and why. There are no dark secrets and black boxes, everything is done in the open to those interested. I learnt more in the last few years of playing with Linux at home then I have in the last ten programming on Windows for a living. I think this is why Windows people fear the penguin, if all this is right, it means they are behind where they could be. The big thing I think Windows breaks is your understanding of filesystems. Explaining a virtual filesystem to a Windows (userland only) programmer can melt their mind, explaining the "proc" folder has done that at least a few times. Those who think filesystems don't matter, don't understand how powerful this simple abstraction is. They have never seen a device file, it's hidden from their world, they don't know it's all under their feet. Which goes back to Windows breaking your understanding of filesystems. My kids will be Linux kids and they will know more about computers because of it.