* With regard to the “free as in speech” metaphor … once you start to think about it, it’s a very bad metaphor : the idea of freedom of speech is the freedom of YOU to be free of people using force on you because of what you say. I.e. it’s about protection of YOU. Freedom of software seems to me to be the exact opposite conceptually, it’s all about the freedom of OTHERS to screw YOU out of any credit whatsoever for your own work.

But then, that only goes to show FS prophets know just enough philosophy 101 to have heard about some of the uglier rhetorical devices.

You only wish you were as 1337 as me and my OpenSolaris Linux!

However, when I install XP–which has been several thousand times due to my old job–I’ve noticed that the first few boots of XP are extremely quick then after the third or fourth boot it slows down noticeably.

I’d rather have a broken shitty OS that crashes all the time (and X that dies every 15 minutes), doesn’t have drivers for half my devices, runs basically no useful or quality software whatsoever nor any fun games, and where you’re forced to use 1970′s-like CLI commands to do anything trivial, and have to fix your retarded OS when basic shit breaks every 6 months or less.

GIMP is where it’s at. Hail RMS and the FSF! Oh, I think I’m going to Bora Bora with Adam Queer next year too!

I could go on for days about the drawbacks, bugs and annoyances in Windows, Exchange, SQL and Office.

Want examples? Here’s some for Exchange Server 2007.

Exchange 2007′s admin tools are horrible. The Exchange Management Console is unwieldy and dog-slow. I also do not like the use of PowerShell for ordinary, everyday admin tasks – I shouldn’t need to remember a cmdlet to find out how big a mailbox is, especially as I could find a list of all mailbox sizes within a mailstore in about six clicks in Exchange 2003′s admin interface. I also absolutely loathe, despise and abhor the new message tracking interface – I keep Exchange 2003 boxes online to act as SMTP gateways instead of using Exch2007′s Edge Server role, simple because the tool for tracking the progress of incoming or outgoing mail is so much better in 2003.

Those were easy. Want Office or SQL next??

However, it must be said that I’m criticizing them from a position of knowledge and experience, as I actually USE Windows and MS products, unlike the zealots and misguided converts who refuse to touch anything MS makes, but preach at length about how bad all MS products are, without knowing what the hell they’re on about.

Go and post a thread on UbuntuForums asking what’s wrong with Linux. After you beat out your burning clothing, get back to us and tell us.

Personally, I really don’t understand the “Linux can never be bad, Microsoft can never be good” mindset of the FOSS lunatic fringe. Products improve by recognizing and fixing the flaws. With the mixture of people afraid or unwilling to criticise Linux for fear of the mob and developers who refuse to listen to people who actually try to use their product and are willing to give feedback, I’m surprised Linux makes any improvement at all.

I suppose it’s mostly down to mistrust and dislike (if not outright psychotic hatred) of Microsoft. If Microsoft are involved, all the morality, ethics and ideology of the FOSS movement go out the window.

There are FOSS zealots who are celebrating the fact that an internet TV player (ITV’s) using Microsoft’s SilverLight that WORKED ON LINUX was swapped for a Flash-based system. As a result of the swap, the TV player NO LONGER WORKS IN LINUX. Gnash is just not up to the job, while Moonlight was. It was dropped in favour of something that according to their ideology is actually WORSE than SilverLight (there are few things more proprietary than Flash and few companies more Linux-hostile than Adobe), and doesn’t even bloody work for the average end-user. They’re cheering simply because an MS product was dropped.

Thought for the day – If Linux is so perfect, why do Ubuntu release a new version every six months??