Bug #1 must be closed.

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

Thank you for your willingness to read my thoughts. I believe they are worthy.

I live in the dead centrre of Oslo, Norway. I personally started
playing with GNU+Linux in my late teens, when Microsoft still had the
inertia. They no longer have it. I was forced to accept Windows as a
replacement for GEM. And I remember the day when my father installed
Windows at the cost of GEM. I was born in 1980.

I have hated Microsoft for 23 of my 30 years. I no longer do. I think
Microsoft is beginning to understand what Google, Facebook, Twitter,
Wikipedia.... You know the companies I'm talking about. And Microsoft
do support them. And that is not enough for me to support Microsoft,
but it does tell me something about their willingness to change.

I also do not believe in change for the sake of change. I believe that
is what Apple is doing at this time. It seems to me that we should
give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt and focus our own passion for
freedom at what Apple is doing. What is it they're doing, are they
really just refining free software, or are they really doing something
that will be beneficial to the WWW and the Internet?

I believe that it is better for us to help Microsoft as a worthy
competitor. This will make people angry, but I ask you to consider the
fact that I have worked actively against any form of Microsoft
dominated Internet since I was 13 years of age. I am 30. I do not
believe in the goals of Unity, Windows 7 or OS X. I believe them to be
mistakes that lots of people have to live with. I am fine with it.
Perhaps they really are better.

Do we care? If they make something good, then we will make something
better. We are afraid of patents because we know that they can take
ours without giving us theirs. Do not be fooled. Apple is the best
GNU/Linux operating system for the desktop. Ok, so they don't use
Linux and probably not all of GNU. What does Microsoft have to lay on
the table? Microsoft has nothing we want, except for some aging
technologies that makes the game industry feel at home. Do you
remember the name of the company that was what Microsoft is today?
Novell? Novell Netware is about to be forgotten. It is a good thing.
Both Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.04 does a better job. We do a better job
than Microsoft on most issues.

Let us now stop the hatred against Microsoft and start focusing on how
we will defeat Apple. We have expertise on ARM. We can provide
software on any platform we want. There is no question about that. The
only question is how do we do it?

Microsoft is not our enemy. They've proven that. We have proven that.
Those who appose free software, are our enemies and we will defeat
them, just like we defeated Microsofts ancient ideas, related to the
extreme development that the free internet and free software has
experienced. Well. Perhaps we didn't wear them down or defeat them.
Perhaps we just edjucated them and if they were willing to listen,
then we should listen to them.

We have the burden of Free Software on our shoulders. It really is up
to us to decide whether or not knowing your environment gives you a
better environment. We believe so. We do.

We are the power of the Linux desktop world. We make Linux available
to people who doesn't understand what a kernel is.

If Microsoft gives us Silverlight DRM, then we will support them as a
newborns awakening. If they give us the choice, then we will choose
Ubuntu, but we will also support Microsoft as a modern competitor in a
market that has never been before. We will help them, if they help us.

We will stop hating them if they stop forcing us to choose between
football and computers.

We want Microsoft to succeed, as long as they just give us the chance
to compete. They say Free Software is communist whereas they're
capitalists. . Let's see if freedom of choice is chosen by freedom of
suppression or freedom of participation.

I am not speaking on behalf of anyone other than myself.

Jo-Erlend