Software choice is a revolutionary act! (was: Re: [Marxism] Thanks!)

[Intense Red <intnsred@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Warning, a rant is building, but I'll do my best to keep it civil and to tie
it into Marxism. :-)

 > Suggesting mozilla, etc. was a bit problematic since I am using a dial-up
 > right now and the new browser would probably take a week to download!

   Bzzzt.  Wrong answer!  Mozilla Firefox is 4.7 MB.
<http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/>  That's less than a 30 minute
download.  (Free software is typically very efficient in terms of disk
space.)

   For an investment of 30 minutes, you can then dump Internet Explorer.
Mozilla Firefox will perform equally or better than IE, and also eliminate
99% of web pop-up ads, spyware/adware, and will be a huge improvement in
security over IE.

   Better still, you'll be participating in a communal movement.  Mozilla is
"free software".  That's not only free as in "no-cost" but also free as in
"liberty."  The free software movement is not per-se anti-capitalist (though
many of its leading proponents/authors have left and/or libertarian
tendencies), but it does threaten the entire capitalist system of
intellectual "property", particular intellectual "property" in regards to the
computer software industry.

   So you have two choices:

(1) You can continue to support the country's biggest software monopoly,
Microsoft, and it's Republican head, the richest guy in the world and son of
Washington state's wealthiest banking family, Bill Gates, as it works to
strengthen intellectual "property" laws and to restrict people's choices.
Or...

(2) You can take your first step towards independence and creating a truly
communal software industry based on free, open sharing by adopting Mozilla or
some other free software web browser.

   By choosing option #2 you will be opting for more secure and more stable
software, with far less privacy issues (this is objectively stated by major
computer security firms and even the US Dept of Homeland Security).  You will
also be telling every web site you visit that you prefer free software rather
than Microsoft's restrictive commercial offering.

   In short, you have a choice between a commercial capitalist offering and a
communally-developed free offering of superior quality.  But, of course, it's
going to take you a half-hour to choose the latter.

   The choice *is* revolutionary.  In essence, you can now choose between
capitalism and communism.  That, of course, is wildly overstated, but the
choice has significant meaning.

(Since I don't want to veer too far off the general topic, I'll spare you my
rant and the logic of why any leftist should really be running the
communally-developed GNU/Linux or *BSD for your computer operating system
instead off Microsoft Windows or the MacOS.)

--
If computers have made me more productive, how come I'm not working less?
Who's getting the profits from my increased productivity?!


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