Microsoft claims that free software like Linux, which runs a big chunk of corporate America, violates 235 of its patents. It wants royalties from distributors and users.Is Microsoft really so desperate that it turns to desperate measures like this? I started my boycott against Microsoft two years ago and I've never had a moment's regret :-).
Here at Sun we strongly believe in open source software and open standards (need proof? see OpenJDK, OpenSolaris, OpenJFX and many others). Why? Because we are convinced that this is one of the things that can make the world a better place.
If you use Microsoft products you might want to look into alternatives which are often far superior. Most of these alternative applications/services are free or even open source. And these are the applications that Microsoft is trying to destroy because they can't find a better way to compete with them.
Check these out just to name a few:
- Java - as an alternative to .NET
- Ubuntu Linux/Solaris/MacOS - as alternatives to MS Windows
- OpenOffice/NeoOffice - as alternatives to MS Office
- Firefox - as an alternative to MS Internet Explorer
- Thunderbird - as an alternative to Outlook
- Miranda/Adium - as an alternative to MSN Messenger
- Google Online Products - as an alternative to MS Live
If you like any of these, don't forget to tell you friends and help us make the world a better place :)
3 comments:
Well said. There are tons of alternatives out there to Microsoft including some great ones to MS Messenger as we've listed here:
http://www.insidetonic.com/10-alternatives-to-msn-messenger/
From the list provided I can agree only about the Firefox browser.
To my mind, .NET is much more beautiful than Java (I mean the default Class Library and the language (C# vs Java) as well).
Office: I am a fan of OOo, but I admit that the MS Word is much better than the Writer.
IM: Yup, I am a user of Miranda, but again, Miranda still doesn't support audio nor video conferences, it supports lots of protocols at once though.
Windows vs Linux - we need to admit that Windows is better. Because users choose a better OS, and this OS is still Windows in most of the cases (90%, I guess). When Linux of MacOS will be spread worldwide, it will be a reason to review that affirmation.
I agree that some of the Java API is starting to show age, .NET had the advantage of coming to the market after Java and therefor having chance to learn from mistakes done in Java class library. But as you might have noticed Java platform doesn't run only Java code now. Check out JRuby, Groovy, JavaFX (in a way).
Regarding OOo vs MS Office, I think that when it comes to the value/cost ratio, OOo is total winner. You are right that OOo lacks many features that MS Office has, but it's just a matter of time and gaining more market share/development power to add the feature to OOo. And btw OOo also has some great features that MS Office doesn't.
Yes, miranda doesn't have support for A/V. But it is an "instant messenger" after all. I use Adium (doesn't have A/V features) on my Mac in preference to iChat (which has A/V features), just because it feels better and does better job at handling IM communication (which is its primary function).
When it comes to operating systems, I think that Windows will be just loosing its market share as the time goes by. More and more vendors are looking at linux (few years ago it was impossible to buy a pc laptop without windows, nowadays you can get laptops with pre-installed and supported linux) and solaris. Windows spread across the world at the right time using and using the right strategy. It became the monopoly, but as it usually happens, no monopoly lasts for ever, just because in monopoly innovation is not the number one priority.
I'm sure that MacOS will gain more market share as well. When I look around me, I see that most of the people buying computers now, buy an Apple hw with MacOSX.
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