Windows Anonymous

We aren't the stereotypes you think we are. We are single, and we are married. We are white-collar, and we are blue-collar. We see daylight and are not afraid of it. We know how to fix things that aren't electronic in nature, and we're fairly good at it. We didn't just fall out of college expecting to be millionaires but we are college-educated in IS/IT. We have differences, and we have commonalities; here, the prime commonality is being chained to a proprietary, insecure, unreliable operating system as a result of corporate stuffed-shirts who don't know any better. We have seen that there are options; not surprisingly, we have seen that those options are UNIX-based. An operating system doesn't exist in more-or-less the same form for 40-some years, in some of the most technologically advanced datacenters and networked organizations, if its developers aren't doing something right.

Our organization doesn't exist for the sole purpose of Windows-bashing; that would be akin to shooting fish in a barrel and shows little understanding of the reasons behind the issues. We are here to show the world that you can in fact leave Windows and all its problems behind. Yes, we're aware that "my company requires such-and-such proprietary file format and I have to use Windows", and while we're not advocating risking your livelihood for the sake of change, everyone should know that there are options; don't let a faceless corporation dictate your life. We've been through it; we know how it is.

Microsoft has a monopoly. It might not be legally defined as such, but there's the theory and then there's the reality. They came to this point by (mostly) legal means--we won't dwell on the whole browser ordeal--no one forced Michael Dell or the guys at Gateway/HP/eMachines/Compaq/IBM to sign licensing deals with Microsoft, and most (if not all) of these companies would be nonexistent were it not for said license agreement. Times have changed since Bill Gates pulled off these famous coups d'etat; unfortunately, Windows has become so entrenched in our psyche that it's often difficult to separate the PC from the OS. We're here to change that, and we're here to help you change that, but first you have to want that change to happen. We're here to dispel myths and get to the facts; no corporate propaganda allowed.

We realize that there are some people who are happy using Windows; we're not here to tell anyone that they're wrong simply because they have a personal preference. Rather, we wish to educate them; freedom of choice does not mean "Use Linux" any more than it means "Use Mac" (or BSD, or Solaris). We feel that the open-source initiative is the best route to reliability, security, and alleviation of the frustration commonly encountered when faced with the prospect of the latest virus/worm/malware or having to pay for software for which there is a reasonable equivalent in the open-source world. You may tell us that Mac OSX is more secure and list verifiable reasons why this is so but don't tell us "it's just naturally more secure" without any sort of evidence, or drag on with "In the beginning the Word was Jobs"-type personality cultism. You will likely never hear any of us say OS X is a "bad" OS; we just feel that, since BSD is free, Apple has no business charging money for it (even though the BSD license technically permits them to do so). In fact one of our biggest gripes about Apple is their propensity to "borrow" just enough open-source code to stay out of reach of the limits of various licenses, add something to it and call it proprietary.

If your Vista install runs great and you have no problems with it, great; feel free to tell us all about it, but don't waste anyone's time with Microsoft-generated propaganda (like their feeble attempt a few years back to show that Server 2003 was allegedly more secure than Red Hat). In short, we want the debate--even welcome it--but it has to be intelligent; "because I said so" didn't work with us when we were children and it won't work now.

Many people, as well, have an application that they just can't do without and there isn't a version of it available for anything other than Windows; again, we know how it is. Our goal here is twofold: First, we want to make people aware that there are usually ways to get the same functionality in another app; for instance, no one here will try to fool anyone into believing that GIMP is a realistic alternative to Photoshop. Xara Xtreme, however, is damn close. Second, there is strength in numbers; the more people we have banging on a company's door, the more likely they will be to look at making something available for another OS. nVidia learned this lesson by working with the open-source community and is now the primary choice for graphics among those using open source. ATI decided not to concentrate on that market segment and it burned them, not that they'll admit it; merger with AMD or not, no one turns away some 30 million potential customers by accident. (Now, if only nVidia would come up with 64 bit drivers for BSD...) HP's printers are the best-supported in the business, and they're well-represented in the open-source world too.

If you really want to untether yourself from Windows, we're here to help. As with any recovery program, there are some steps you need to take: