Software Should Be Free

Man, that's music to my ears! Software should be free. The sound is so beautiful it jolted me out of hibernation. And my first thought was to blog.

Hey, The LORD My Dad may be a minuscule speck in cyberspace but it is also potentially the farthest and most that I could reach others with news I consider important. With computer and software costs perpetually shooting through the roof, news of an operating system and applications for free or next-to-nothing rocks!

Especially when my computer has just suffered its third meltdown, no thanks to the instability of the ubiquitous Windows operating system it depends on to run. I would not mind it so much if I were free to do tweaks as I see fit but somehow you get the sense that Microsoft is looking over your shoulder all the time, watching what you are doing with their(?) software. Then, when you do run into problems and you turn to “big brother”, you mostly find yourself having to shell out big dollars to keep up with the rapidly developing internet and computing technology. Like I’m just a tenant in my own computer space paying rent to Microsoft so I could use Windows to enjoy existence in that space.

This infuriating sense of dependence has driven me to seriously look into other operating systems. Linux seems to be coming very close to a user-friendliness I could be comfortable with. There is just this “threshold” I am waiting for them to cross and I am determined to switch. Oh, the freedom of the open source environment!

In any case, this “Software should be free” stuff I’m talking about, check it out at informationweek.com’s March 2, 2007 article by Thomas Claburn titled Xcerion’s Internet Cloud Forms Over Google and Microsoft.

Here’s a quote:

In the third quarter of 2007, an all-but-unknown Swedish software company plans to release a new, free operating system that has the potential to radically alter the economics of software development. If successful, it may be able to further erode the power Microsoft derives from control of the desktop, to beat Google at its software-as-a-service play, and to make commodity Linux boxes more viable as a computing platform for the masses.

A phrase, “OS in the cloud”, is coined to describe it. Microsoft itself seems to be involved in a skunk-works project with it.

But the startup Xcerion, which has been in “stealth mode” since 2001, is bidding to beat Microsoft to it.

For me, it just makes for meaningful competition that might just wake Microsoft up from it’s self-serving ways. I don’t know what they are doing in their skunk-works but I have had some experience with “Web 2.0” offerings from Google and Netvibes and I was able to completely dissociate myself from Microsoft’s Office Suite without missing a beat. This “OS in the cloud” thing will be extremely disruptive to ensconced powers-that-be in cyberspace.

Poke around Xcerion’s website here to find out more.

Watch out!

Oh, and good to hear from you all again. I hope to blog about this thing more frequently.

God bless you!