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Why do people switch to Linux? [A LXer Story]
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Comments (4)
Quoting:It was only after I began using GNU/Linux predominantly that I developed any anti-Microsoft sentiments.
This is an important statement in my opinion, which I came across many more times. It is also true for myself.
You see, much of the tech-journalists are clueless, and think people switch to Linux because they (already) are 'anti-MS'. But from my own experiences (what other people have written), I can tell most people only become anti-MS áfter they switched away from it. This confirms my assumption, that people only are interested in Microsofts way of dealing with ethics, after they found out there's an alternative.
My experience is a bit different. I've distrusted Microsoft for a long time, even before I knew of Linux's existence. But that was because I had already read articles about their shady business practices (the first article I had read was about OS/2 IIRC). Seeing a company make so much money through practices at the border of legality (if not frankly illegal, like when they sold DOS to IBM when they actually hadn't signed the deal buying QDOS yet!) burned them in my eyes already, even before I had actually touched a PC (at that time my computer was an Amiga :) ). And when I first used a PC (Windows 95) and discovered that they weren't even capable of making acceptable software, my opinion wouldn't to change anymore. I mean, I wouldn't like them even if they made the best software in the world, so how can I accept their behaviour now?
For me distrusting Microsoft has always been a question of ethics, before I even knew how their software actually was.
As for alternatives, for me it was always a given that there were alternatives. I first got into computers at a time when the PC was still just one competitor among many (in that time, the personal market was dominated by the Atari ST and the Amiga, at least in France. I don't know about other countries). My computer already had a graphical OS while Windows didn't even exist yet. And Macs were extremely high-end hardware, prized by publishers, but extremely expensive (and they had a strange-looking monitor ;) ).
For me distrusting Microsoft has always been a question of ethics, before I even knew how their software actually was.
As for alternatives, for me it was always a given that there were alternatives. I first got into computers at a time when the PC was still just one competitor among many (in that time, the personal market was dominated by the Atari ST and the Amiga, at least in France. I don't know about other countries). My computer already had a graphical OS while Windows didn't even exist yet. And Macs were extremely high-end hardware, prized by publishers, but extremely expensive (and they had a strange-looking monitor ;) ).
"This confirms my assumption, that people only are interested in Microsofts way of dealing with ethics, after they found out there's an alternative."
I wouldn't put it quite that way. Your wording seems to imply that I understood them to be an unethical company prior to my discovery of GNU/Linux. I was not aware of their business practices until later. I had never paid much attention to business news, and no attention at all to computing news until I got a computer ('95). Even then, I had given little or no thought to what is 'ethical' in computing. I started off as a literal technophobe. Like many others, I was blind enough to just click the "I Agree" button, and keep going. I never heard or saw much about whether Microsoft was ethical or not.
That said, the proprietary business model had already caused me a great deal of grief when I started tinkering with Red Hat. I could see that GNU/Linux had serious advantages, even if I couldn't quite spell them out. It took me a long time, though to become comfortable enough to start using GNU/Linux predominantly. Reading the materials at the FSF site really helped me to understand my experiences with the CD burning software and the printer. RMS and I are world's apart in some very important ways. But we both started our quest because of a printer. :-)
I wouldn't put it quite that way. Your wording seems to imply that I understood them to be an unethical company prior to my discovery of GNU/Linux. I was not aware of their business practices until later. I had never paid much attention to business news, and no attention at all to computing news until I got a computer ('95). Even then, I had given little or no thought to what is 'ethical' in computing. I started off as a literal technophobe. Like many others, I was blind enough to just click the "I Agree" button, and keep going. I never heard or saw much about whether Microsoft was ethical or not.
That said, the proprietary business model had already caused me a great deal of grief when I started tinkering with Red Hat. I could see that GNU/Linux had serious advantages, even if I couldn't quite spell them out. It took me a long time, though to become comfortable enough to start using GNU/Linux predominantly. Reading the materials at the FSF site really helped me to understand my experiences with the CD burning software and the printer. RMS and I are world's apart in some very important ways. But we both started our quest because of a printer. :-)
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I had already begun exploring GNU/Linux, beginning with Red Hat 5.1, then Mandrake 8.0, and finally moved on to SUSE 8.0. I had begun to see the advantages of GNU/Linux with Mandrake 8.0 and was advocating it then. Still, it wasn't until SUSE 8.0 that I began to use GNU/Linux predominantly. With SUSE 9.2, I blew away my Windows partition. I had only used Windows a few times for minor stuff in the previous year, and now had absolutely no reason to use it anymore.
It was only after I began using GNU/Linux predominantly that I developed any anti-Microsoft sentiments. Of course, I no longer use proprietary software, but my disdain for Microsoft comes from their legal track record, the mis-information they disseminate in public, and their support for issues that run counter to my personal beliefs.