A Major threat to free/open operating systems.

Free and open source software (FOSS) advocates need to stop obsessing about Microsoft. But, just as clearly, many of them won't, if the reactions I received when I blogged about the subject are any indication.

Things need to change and Apple needs to be seen for what it really is: a threat to innovation and freedom. For as long as anyone can remember Microsoft has been seen as the primary enemy of free and open source software (FOSS).

Former Microsoft employee Keith Curtis publishes new book After the Software Wars on lulu.com. The key to faster technological progress is making software free, he writes. The difference between free, and non-free or proprietary software, is similar to the divide between science and alchemy.

No user of free and open source software (FOSS) can escape having an opinion about Microsoft. Microsoft products and technologies represent what FOSS users have left behind. Some consider it increasingly irrelevant, and others a shadowy figure comparable to Satan in the Middle Ages or the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Bucking the conventional wisdom and Microsoft press releases, ABI Research says that Linux has a 32% share of the netbook market - and predicts Linux will overtake Windows by 2013. Microsoft says “. . . over 93% of worldwide small notebook PCs run Windows today.” They can’t both be right.

The world’s most popular operating system is Windows, which is made by the Microsoft Corporation. Linux has no links with Windows at all. Microsoft doesn’t contribute anything to Linux and, in fact, is rather hostile toward it, because it threatens Microsoft’s market dominance. This means that installing Linux can give you an entirely Microsoft-free PC. How enticing does that sound?

What the heck is happening in Redmond? Is Microsoft really giving away antivirus software? Yes, friends, it appears that they are. Come on Microsoft, we really want to hate you. I've carried this Microsoft voodoo doll* around with me for years--stabbing it every time I have to pay money for one of your products on a new laptop or desktop computer.

Advocating free and open source software often will go hand in hand with pointing out issues or problems with particular Microsoft strategies. Considering that FOSS is the only 'thing' left that competes with Microsoft on the same breadth of products and market places, it is no surprise that Microsoft sees the need to defend itself.