Open Source is Here

I began my computing with a windows machine. I installed Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000 and XP on my previous desktops. Finally, I switched to Ubuntu 6.10, the linux distro I chose as a linux newbie. There's nothing like installing your own operating system yourself and getting to know all the important hardware that goes into your pc.

The age of proprietary software is gone and Open Source is here. iPhone, Facebook and Linux owes its success to Open Source. They have become the platform in which developers offer their applications according to the principles of Open Source.

Then there's Cloud Computing that Google and IBM are developing into a major medium. What Cloud means to us consumers is that our data, settings and profiles, aah, even the operating system and its applications that we are going to use will not be residing in our local hard drives but in servers. IBM is building server farms that are energy efficient to handle storage and traffic. Google will be offering a service called Gdrive. Initially, they will be offering a free 25GB storage online for each user. The catch is the service's default operating system is a native Google OS. (but what's to stop me from changing to another OS? Open Source indeed!).

The march of the penguin is continuing. Even Micro$oft is using the same Open Source tactics. They offered 2.5 million free downloads of their newest os called Windows 7 beta 1 last week. Reminder though, it's a beta version and they do not give us, consumers, a guarantee that this operating system will remain free.

So the question remains: Why would you want to pay for another operating system if there is a better alternative that's guaranteed free?

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