The great linux tablet experiment of aught nine!

After having my laptop FINALLY blasted (my delay, not the tech staff) I decided it was time for a minor experiment.

Computing has gotten to the point where the hardware expense is now equal to or less than the cost of the software that is running on it. This is ridiculous. It is a layover from a time when information was easily quantified, meted out and sold. It used to make sense. You would know a bunch about a subject, write a book, people would buy that book, and they would be paying mostly for the cost of the book, and just a little more for your particular expertise.

Now, in a technological era, where vast amounts of information can duplicated for virtually free, we are still charging for something that has no nominal value. Luckily, there is a strong movement in the world to change the way in which we buy and sell software. Specifically, that we DON'T buy or sell software. Software is merely code that has been written, and is easily duplicated. That should be free, and trying to prohibit people from copying the software leads to arcane key management schemes, copy protection issues (rootkits, sony, tsk tsk) and a myriad of other issues. This reminds me of the War of the Currents between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. Tesla's alternating current technology was one of the largest paradigm shifts in history, and Edison spent a better part of his life trying to squash the technology merely because it cut into his bottom line. It set the nation back decades, and if Tesla had been able to continue his high energy work, we may have been able to provide low cost electricity to the remote parts of the world long ago.

To make a long story short (TOO LATE), I support free software. Software that is written by people who want to share their knowledge and creations with others. The current software model is like charging people millions of dollars for an art masterpiece, and also charging millions of dollars to have prints of the painting in their living room.

There are many free software suites, and although many of them lack the "flash" and panache of more polished paid software, you really question "is it necessary?"

This was motivated by the decision to take OpenOffice.org and the Gimp software off the computer image. These are alternatives for Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop.

I will run this experiment for the remainder of the year, and only use free (and preferably open-source) software on my laptop for work. I will see if it is possible, and indeed how hard it would be to save hundreds on software.