If I may ask this

[Silvertones]

This seemed a more appropriate place to ask as opposed to the BIG forums.

Here Goes:
Do you use Linux more as a political statement? Anti MS, anti big business, anti capitalism, pro socialism?

I'm truly sincere in my inquiry. This is the impression I'm getting.

[erik2912]

No, i just want a secure os without blue screens.

[Dayofswords]

not in the NC area buuuuuutttt

i find it just runs better in general
sure some things are hard, but thats true with every OS

[kaitwospirit]

A lot of people just like it better, or use it because it doesn't cost anything. That's why I use it.

For some it is a political statement, but what statement that is varies. Some are pro-free software, some are anti-Microsoft. I don't really get an anti-capitalist or pro-socialist vibe about Ubuntu or Linux. Where do you see that?

[Silvertones]

I know those statements are sort of in the extreme but for me as a black & white person I see anti MS as anti Capitalism and I see pro free software ( all software) as being pro socialism.
I use Linux on one of my lappies for Internet only. I think Linux is best suited for this. Much more secure. My other lappy is XP for eveything else. It never goes on the Internet and has no antimalware programs installed and it runs great. It's the antimalware stuff that's really screwing up MS but it's their own fault.

[Marlonsm]

Actually not, I just use it for being better for my needs. I'm not against capitalism, and not against Microsoft. In fact, I'll soon be needing Windows, so I've also bought it, to have the best of both worlds.

[markthecarp]

I know those statements are sort of in the extreme but for me as a black & white person I see anti MS as anti Capitalism and I see pro free software ( all software) as being pro socialism.

Wouldn't this logically imply that Microsoft is pro socialism?

I do not think it fair to use economic theories or systems, both socialism [1] and capitalism [2] are economic systems, to compare the closed source proprietary and free open source software development models.

One example of that is the software company headquarted in Raleigh, North Carolina named RedHat [3]. They produce, among other things, RedHat Enterprise Linux and sponsor the Fedora project. Over the last five years their stock price has increased 131.6% [4]. Certainly that is a successful capitalist venture based on open source technology. Canonical, Inc. [5] is another example but being a privately held company we do not have access to their financials. While Canonical sponsors Ubuntu, a free open source project, they choose to be closed on the details of their financial situation. At least I couldn't google up any details.

I started using Linux in the late '90's initially because I could find so much information on how things worked. Now I find the unix philosophy of computing superior to Microsoft's more monolithic approach.

I use Linux on one of my lappies for Internet only. I think Linux is best suited for this. Much more secure. My other lappy is XP for eveything else. It never goes on the Internet and has no antimalware programs installed and it runs great. It's the antimalware stuff that's really screwing up MS but it's their own fault.

To me to own a computer that I could not safely connect to the internet would make that machine virtually useless; but that's just me.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
[3] http://www.redhat.com
[4] http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:RHT
[5] http://www.canonical.com

Regards,
Mark

[ubudog]

No, i just want a secure os without blue screens.

Me too. Nothing political about it for me.

[jeffrash]

Let's see my reasons for using Linux, hmmm...

At first it was just another technology that the time had come for me to learn. We were looking at moving our Oracle database servers to Linux at the company I worked for at the time. The manager of the IT security team suggested Ubuntu 6.06 to learn the basics. I downloaded and installed it. That was years ago.

Now I use it because it's faster, safer, cleaner, cheaper and can do everything I want it to do.

No politics, never even crossed my mind.


(We never did move Oracle to Linux. The company went out of business a few years after I left.)

[fancypiper]

I use Linux because it fits all of my computing needs and the price fits my budget.

I dual booted with Windows 98SE and Windows XP until I got completely fed up with the many bugs that remained unfixed in Windows. I found myself booting into Windows only when helping "friends" with their computers, but I got tired of that quickly as all the help went one way.

When I finally reclaimed the disk space that Windows had used, I found that I could do all my computing needs easier and quicker in Linux, so I haven't looked back.

I may come across as political as I strongly disagree with Microsoft's business ethics.

Competition is good for the consumer and producer, so up Linux!