Editorial: Liberty requires there be choices

So, your old laptop works just fine, but come October 2025, Microsoft says your Windows 10 operating system will die, and you must buy a new laptop with an “approved” processor.

Gee, you don’t use your laptop for quantum computing or anything like that. And you would rather replace your 20-year old water heater, than replace a perfectly good laptop. Also, you are finding it stressful to pay subscriptions for all your software, like a basic word processor, spreadsheet, and antivirus.

To make it all even worse, you are starting to resent being told by the Davos elite that “You will own nothing, and you will be happy.” You know that back in the day people paid a one-time fee and actually owned their software to use as they saw fit.

Well, why are you sticking with Windows?

Windows is not your only alternative. You can declare your independence from from Microsoft. You can “own” your operating system, office suite, image editor, financial software, and other applications – all for free.

Welcome to the world of open source.

Open source operating systems and applications designed for the average computer user (as opposed to technology professionals) date back to the early 1980s. Back then, proprietary systems and software with closed source codes started to pop up to the dismay of many programmers. So, in 1983, enter Richard Stallman (programmer with Harvard and MIT credentials), now considered the father of open source. He launched the GNU Project to write a free operating system that anyone could tailor to needs, improve, or debug. Today software developed by GNU programmers is used by numerous systems.

Throughout the 1990s, open source web servers (like Apache), operating systems (like Linux) and applications (like LibreOffice) expanded and became increasingly user friendly, especially by the creation of graphic interface.

Open source has come a long, long way, but has a little more ways to go if it is to become truly competitive with the paint by numbers nature of the current near-monopolistic giants in the software market. Also, today’s users seem to prefer the often inane and irrelevant responses to questions on Microsoft or QuickBooks forums than read the clear and effective documentation on Linux or GnuCash.

There is lots of information on open source software online, and you need to choose what works best for your needs.

My choice

I have two perfectly good workhorse laptops, which are 8 and 9 years old. They both came with Windows installed. That’s the operating system I have been using ever since I gave up my beloved DOS. I have never discarded a computer unless I absolutely had to.

Therefore, rather than cave to Microsoft’s suggested laptops and approved processors, my choice was to wipe Windows OS and Microsoft apps, install Linux Mint, and move my most needed data to the new system.

I chose Linux for my new operating system because of its particularly good reputation. I chose Mint as the version (distribution) of Linux that seemed most user friendly. There are other open source systems, as well as other distributions of Linux (like Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu).

Although there are users that must do their work online, many do not. Also, some users prefer not to be “signed on” all the time. For those users a system like Linux is ideal. You can work offline, and use your Internet to install new applications, update the applications you have chosen to install, and of course the many other things you do like emails, looking up stuff, ordering from your favorite stores, etc.

Linux can do just about everything Windows can. However, Linux does not have its own email provider, like Microsoft has Outlook or Google has Gmail. But you can use Gmail, Outlook, ProtonMail, and other providers on Linux.

My Linux Mint came with LibreOffice suite for everything I needed to do on Microsoft Office 365. Zoom works fine. Gimp works fine for image editing. I am still deciding on a financial software, but leaning towards GnuCash, which looks pretty much like QuickBooks.

All truly open source software is free of charge. However, some users choose to donate to specific development projects or to organizations like the Linux Foundation or the Free Software Foundation.

What does open source software have to do with Suggestions for Liberty?

First, let’s be clear that this article is not an ad for open source, nor did the Just Vote No blog receive anything from anyone for posting it.

What this article hopes to do is offer suggestions that could help individuals or families on a budget, provide an alternative to being chained to near-monopolistic providers, and fight the credo that “you will own nothing” (you “will be happy “ paying rent for your home, lease for your car, and subscriptions for the software in your computer).

Liberty in government, in the market place, in daily life requires that there be choices.