Are you forced to buy windows in order to solve certain tasks on the internet e.g. like certain banktasks and to update garmin gps maps and other

[David Fletcher]

On Mon, 2014-08-04 at 13:52 -0500, Tom Poe wrote:
> It's time for me to reregister my car, so this morning went to the MN 
> state dept of motor vehicles.  I can't use their office locator. as it 
> requires MS silver something or other.  Unless I switch to Windows, I'm 
> left with auto menu on phone, or drive to license office, and get 
> directions from them.  It sucks, being a second class citizen.  :)
> Tom
> 
> 

Sounds to me like US (Un Servicable?) government departments trying to
keep a parasite alive to continue sucking revenue from the rest of us in
order to pay taxes in the US.

No such problems over here in the UK - I've been using Linux to pay for
what we call tax disks, and declare SORN (Statutory Off Road Notice) for
my cars for many years, with never a problem at all. All of you over in
the US might also like to read this little press release:-

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/open-document-formats-selected-to-meet-user-needs

and bring it to the attention of your political representatives.

-- 

Lisa Simpson:- "They must have programmed it to eliminate the
competition."
Bart Simpson:- "You mean like Microsoft?"