Recently, Microsoft launched a new marketing campaign, at least here in the Netherlands. They claim that on a computer that runs Windows XP, "the choice is entirely yours". It made me wonder - what choice??

If it's up to MS, they give me the choice of running IE, or Windows Media Player. They don't give me the choice to remove those programs, and to use alternatives that I personally think are better. Sure, I can install those, but getting rid of MS apps is not-done. Even if I don't use IE or WMP, my computer is often still open to vulnerabilities in those programs because of their tight integration in the OS, and the missing ability of removing them.

I also recently read an article given by a fellow student (and colleague). An interesting one, "The Other Road Ahead" by Paul Graham. It's one of fourteen essays from the book Hackers and Painters. Graham, who works in the computer industry and has had several successes (mainly Viaweb, now Yahoo Store, as mentioned in the article). He describes that the fewer programmers work on a software project, the more efficient they will work. It's scary a company like Microsoft is able to release anything, as it's huge and like a mountain that can walk.

On the other hand there's Linux. While as user I'm still limited to what the OS and its apps give me, there's generally a much wider choice. If I don't want a media player, I can get rid of them without problems - ok, I can't play music or movies, but at least I can install any player I like, and get rids of the ones I don't like. The same goes for browsers (Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, you name it, it's available, fortunately except IE). Similarly, there are several apps for e-mail, plain text editors (most with syntax highlighting support available by default, unlike Notepad), chat/IM apps... I can make the desktop look like I want, either by downloading themes or by creating something myself, but even using what's available I can customise a great deal of my desktop. On Windows you're stuck with a teletubby-like interface, or the plain Windows one. Skinning the GUI is not a possibility without third party tools that hack the OS.

Maybe it's this choice that scares newbies from Linux, as they don't know what to use. Guidance is the key. Someone with the knowledge can install Linux, the necessary parts - but not too many - and even a newbie will find his or her way around the system.

Sure, Windows has some good things, mainly user-friendliness. Many say Linux still need a killer-app to bring people to the OSS world. In the end, I think it's a matter of time before Microsoft will shoot itself in the heart instead of the foot, and its empire will collapse. With there being so many fields they want to "0\/\/n", to me it seems inevitable that it becomes an uncontrollable log, without any view on the core market. As a result all products become worse, and once customers see there's something out there that's obviously better, they'll step over. I'm not talking days or months here, there's a movement going on and it will have to continue for several years or even decades. But MS will not be the dominant one forever.

The best solution is not always the most popular one, and in the end only time will tell what happens to MS and the market of desktop computers.

Next time maybe something less IT or OSS/MS focussed...