[Vision2020] Open source and related concepts

[Chasuk]

I've run Linux sporadically since 1995 (Slackware), and I now install
most new builds of Ubuntu.  I prefer Gnome to KDE, not for any
political reasons, I just think it's prettier.  Desktop Managers don't
have to be pretty, of course, but when I can have great functionality
plus prettiness, I'll gladly take both.  I started with CP/M.

I don't hate Microsoft.  I think they were necessary.  We needed one
monolithic OS to push the industry to the ridiculous heights it has
achieved, and MS was in the right place at the right time, and shrewd.
 They were also often unscrupulous, I acknowledge, but I can forgive
them a lot considering the enormous good that the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation does.

I switched to OS X after 25 years in a primarily Microsoft world, and
I haven't regretted it.  A Unixy OS with a candy-coated shell (pun
intended).  There are a lot of niche applications (particularly
writer's tools) that exist solely on the Mac.  Vista (not the OS, but
the activation and other privacy concerns) motivated the change.

I used Unix nearly full-time for about two years.  This was in the day
that the font management was crap, the package management abominable,
and installing even a simple piece of software could frequently take
hours, but I persevered.  In the end, it wasn't maturing fast enough
for my liking, and I missed the games, so I reverted to Windows.  Now,
with Ubuntu, Linux has reached a sort of developmental critical mass,
and Linux development is actually outstripping Windows.  Remember,
however, that many (most?) of those OSS programmers still pay fro
their Linux projects by developing Windows products.  Still, as
skeptical as I used to be, Microsoft's miscalculation with Vista, and
the emergence of a second programming superpower who uses only/largely
OSS products (Google), Linux and OSS is set to triumph.

Chas