A campaign called ‘Bad Vista’ from the Free Software Foundation is trying to tell Internet users that Vista is bad and that they shouldn’t use it.
The Bad Vista campaign is one that tries to examine Vista’s deficiencies, its use of Digital Rights Management software and other perceived ills. The FSF, of Free Software Foundation wants us all to use Linux or other alternatives.
The problem for them is that most of the world is very happy to use Windows, and when they start using Vista, they will be very happy for the improvements it brings to the Windows experience, as it certainly does bring forth a number of improvements.
While some of these can be retrofitted into Windows XP, such as using a desktop search tool like Google Desktop, Yahoo’s search tool or even Microsoft’s own Windows Search software, it’s often better to have this kind of functionality built right into the operating system.
While I’m happy to agree that some of Microsoft’s restrictions aren’t necessary, I’m also a very happy Vista user, and none of the so-called restrictions have prevented me from doing anything that I wanted to do so far in Vista.
If people are free to make their own software choices, then they’re free to use Microsoft products as well. If you want to go with Linux, or Apple or something else, by all means do it.
But until some kind of critical mass emerges, Linux and Apple (even with the iPod halo effect) still represent only fractions of the market share that Microsoft enjoys.
By all means visit the site and make up your own mind. But until Apple releases some new MacBooks (or MacBook Pros) later in 2007, I’m staying with Vista. And even when Apple does release its new versions, I’ll still be using Windows Vista, even alongside Mac OS X.
