Thoughts on Open Source

In the past year or so, I have become more and more opposed to Microsoft than I had in the past. Obviously, the advent of "Windows Genuine Advantage" and the draconian DRM features in Vista played a major role in my decision, but there has also been a shift in my mentality.

Over the past few months, I've done a bunch of research on open source server OSes. I have become fond of OpenBSD which, by all accounts (that I've seen), is one of the most secure operating systems in the world. The project is headed by a Canadian named Theo de Raadt and is a derivative of 4.4 BSD, which itself is a derivative of the original UNIX. de Raadt was originally a NetBSD developer, but split from the NetBSD team in the mid-90s. OpenBSD, as its name implies, is entirely open source. de Raadt is a major proponent of the open source movement and has done a lot of work getting hardware vendors to release specifications that allow open source drivers to be written.

I have installed OpenBSD several times over the past few months: first trying to get it to be a print server at my apartment, and then later to be an SMTP server up at work. I have long preferred text file configuration over Microsoft Management Console, but OpenBSD really drives that home. It is so well organized that I rarely run into problems that I have had elsewhere. It was generally a positive experience. There are some areas that they can improve on, but given their limited resources, the OpenBSD team does a tremendous job.

That experience was fresh in my mind when, on Friday, my work computer spontaneously combusted and died on me. Naturally, this is just about the worst possible weekend for this to happen. I've got a giant day coming up tomorrow, so I couldn't afford any downtime, plus I had planned on moving this weekend. Scrap those plans. Got to fix the computer.

I decided to replace most of the guts in my machine to make sure the impetus of my motherboard frying was no longer in the case. So, with the new parts in my computer, I set out to boot from my hard drives. The Windows XP loading screen flashed briefly, and then blue screened. My first beef: open source operating systems certainly aren't above crashing or bugs in general, but this would not have happened to me in Linux. If the Linux kernel supports my hardware, it's gonna boot -- or at least get me to a point where I can modify settings and change things up.

So, I decided to try out a Windows "Repair Install." I put my Windows CD in the drive, and powered on. The installer started up and everything was fine until it told me that it couldn't find any hard drives in my system. (!!) I immediately knew what the problem was: the Windows installer didn't have drivers for my RAID. The only way around this is with a floppy drive. And not just any floppy drive, but an old-school, ribbon cable floppy drive. USB floppy drives do not work with the Windows installer. Beef number two: This would *never* happen in an open source OS. Every open source OS installer that I've ever used will always let you drop to a command line and load drivers via any means available. What a miserable shortcoming in the Windows XP installer.

During the repair install, I was prompted for my product key. Damn lucky that I had been smart enough to stick my Certificate of Authenticity to the side of my case, or else this might have screwed me. Why do I need to re-enter my product key during a repair install? In fact, why should I have to enter a product key at all!? I paid $160 for that copy of Windows XP. Shouldn't that spare me from entering 20-digit, random, alphanumeric character sequences that are obnoxiously difficult to read?

Then, when things finally booted up, Windows informed me that my activation was no longer valid. I suppose the change in motherboard was suspicious. Hey, Microsoft! I'm not using the old board because it FRIED ITSELF. Luckily, I didn't have to call a Microsoft surrogate in India and explain myself. (I've had to do that before). I'm sure if I ever go and do something like that again, I will have to waste 30 minutes of my life demonstrating to Microsoft that I still have a legal Windows license.

Further souring my mood, Adobe Photoshop popped up with the same complaint. It also let me re-activate without incident. I paid over $900 for Adobe Creative Suite. I damn sure shouldn't have to call them.

If this had been an OpenBSD computer, I would have put the new motherboard in, hit the power switch and I would have been done. I could copy my OS onto 25 computers, and I wouldn't violate any license. I could modify the source code, compile it, put it in a propriety box of my own, and sell it for millions of dollars and I still wouldn't violate any license. Legally, I wouldn't owe Theo de Raadt a dime. Of course, if that happened, I would make a large donation to the OpenBSD project, but I would be under no obligation to do so.

So, after the events of this weekend, my stance against Microsoft has hardened. My intention is for Windows XP to be the last Microsoft OS that I ever use. If I can help it, it will also be the last Microsoft operating system that my company uses. I am hoping, that by the time Microsoft ends its support for XP, Linux will have made itself a viable alternative. There are a few things that need to happen before I can recommend Linux for my company, but those things CAN happen, and I fully expect them to.

There are three software packages that my company uses that have no Linux counterparts. Two of them are very specialized packages made especially for my industry. The vendors for said packages are relatively small and ought to be interested in what I have to say, given that I represent a rather large client. I will inform them that we are going to be moving to Linux at some point before the end of Windows XP's support period and that, if they do not intend to port their programs to Linux, we will need to begin exploring alternatives in the near future.

I feel a little like a caged animal here. When a company behaves like Microsoft, I should be able to react by ceasing to do business with them. But I can't. They're a monopoly and I have to use their software. So, I press forward and deal with the problems and expenses that come with using Microsoft software. But at some point, they're going to push me to the point where I will make some sacrifices to avoid using their products.