> [...] if Linux was not better than windows, freedom or not, I
> wouldn't be using it.
To each his own. I have been using linux for quite a while now,
since sometime in early 92, which is about as far back as about anyone
here can claim, I suspect. It used it long before it was "better than
windows". I used it because it was free and I was not at the mercy of
a commercial company to depend on updates. If it didn't do what I
wanted, I know I could go in and change things - if I just learned
enough to know how. I used it because I could get lots of software
that worked the same way. Because I was free to use the whole
system as I wanted.
This was (and still is) important to me because I came from the
Amiga world, and that taught me a lot of lessons. I realized that I
did not want to depend on a company to determine the fate of my system
and software. I watch my once cool Amiga flounder and become
irrelevant largely due to incompetence at Commodore.
When the Amiga finally died, not only did I lose my system, I lost
my software too. All the software I had (purchased and otherwise aquired :)
was useless on any other platform. All the tools that I had built around
that system became irrelevant too.
At that time, I realized that I wanted to be in control. I didn't
want to have my fate be at the hands of poorly managed companies. (or
even well managed ones at that) I did not want to spent $40 for
another piece of software that might not even work when the next
version of the system came out or if I decided to move on to a new
platform. (And, it is not like that was the first time it hit me. I
lost my C64 and Apple II world when I moved to the Amiga)
Anyways - I did not want to see that happen again, so that is why I
embraced UNIX in general and Linux in particular. I realized that
nobody could ever take gcc or bash or any of my other GNU tools away.
I knew that nobody could keep me from my system either. Although I
did not (even in my wildest fantasies) expect Linux to grow so quickly
or so large, I expected there would always be a hacker community
around it that I could be a part of and I would have a system. And,
even if Linux itself were to go away, I knew there would be some other
free system out to replace it which I could continue to use my code
with.
So that is why I made the switch to linux. I'd be curious about
others.
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