The great new operating system promised by Microsoft turns out a disaster as people everywhere find poor hardware support, inability to upgrade brand new computers, incompatibilities with industry standard software and far too restrictive licensing issues.

Completely related to this: I’ve been going against the multi-billion dollar standard by pressing businesses to take a serious look at open source software. It’s as if business owners don’t even realize they could be doing the exact same things they’re doing now for a fraction of the cost and with no threat that the systems they buy today will be obsolete in a few months. The Linux desktop has been a viable business presence for quite a while and there’s no reason to spend, at minimum, $90 [OEM or upgrade price] for an operating system that doesn’t even provide the core functionality that people require from their computers - or that provides that functionality after a bunch of jumping through hoops. If you’re going to upgrade your systems, at least upgrade to something that works.

Linux on the desktop has indeed come a long way in the past few years, including better out of the box hardware support than Vista, better support for common file formats and more polished, enterprise-grade applications that are compatible with commonly used business and personal applications. Also, Linux systems are practically impervious to virus and spyware infections and the default email clients provide spam filtering better than anything that comes with Windows - these are all major issues that many companies, both large and small, pay a fortune attempting to alleviate only to find those solutions are *very* expensive, do a poor job, or both.

I use Linux almost exclusively for my own business operations at Ribosi Inc., I would never recommend a client do something that I won’t do myself. When I started Ribosi Inc., I couldn’t justify the continual purchase of Windows licenses when Linux did everything I needed. I say “almost exclusively” because I do keep one system around that can dual boot into Windows, though I honestly can’t remember the last time I booted to that. My domain controller here does offer real Single Sign On though, handling both Windows and Linux clients using the same credentials and permissions for shared files so, if I wanted to work under Windows, I could do that and have full access to everything I do under Linux.

I equate the shortcomings of Vista with those of Active Directory: With Active Directory, they [Microsoft] promised roaming profiles to business users, which alone made a lot of corporations invest in it. The truth is that most small to medium businesses (and some large ones) with more than as few users on the network can’t use roaming profiles because it copies a user’s entire home directory over the network whenever they log in or out, which has the effect of locking up the network every day at 9am and 5pm when everyone in the company is trying to log in or out. Throw daily reports from remote offices onto the network bandwidth and, well, you can see the issue there - the client ends up having to either dump roaming profile support or spend a fortune upgrading their network infrastructure in order to use them. Vista uses the same sort of tactic, people are promised that they’ll be able to do everything under the sun only to find that even moderately priced, brand new hardware doesn’t support all these bells and whistles. To get the “Vista Experience”, one must pay thorough the nose for top of the line hardware that, in the past, was reserved for gamers and even then they’re not getting the software or hardware support that they’re used to with XP.

There’s no reason for a business or most home users to have to purchase hardware of this caliber to do the majority of the things they want to do with their desktop computers. There are other options. One could attempt to install Linux on their current systems, buy a Linux preloaded computer, use an Apple Mac or even switch back to Windows XP. Vista is simply not worth the hassle. Even though I build Linux systems, I’m certainly not going to say that Linux can meet everyone’s needs, if you do graphics for print, musical notation or want to play the latest-greatest games made for the Windows platform, I’d suggest you use either a Mac or Windows XP where they fit. I believe in using the right tool for the job and, quite frankly, I can’t see Vista as being that for any role other than paperweight or coaster, depending on whether or not it’s been installed yet. Then too, I am a Linux system builder and so probably hold some bias.

Biased or not, I’m not the only one who see Vista in this light. Aside from seemingly endless blog and forum posts and whole web sites dedicated to Vista complaints on the internet, Microsoft has already been sued¹ after letting PC makers certify their computers as “Windows Vista Capable” for new purchasers — only to find out that most of Vista’s advertised features don’t actually work on some of those machines. I personally don’t know enough about the lawsuit one way or the other. If it’s true, computer builders offering Windows would be well advised to offer Vista only on systems that can push the Aeroglass desktop. This is a 3D desktop that provides functionality similar to Linux XGL desktop, something we [Linux] have had for a few years now. The reason I say this is it seems Aeroglass is something people expect when they purchase Vista due to the ads run by Microsoft.

Vista also currently has around 20 different security exploits, showing security turns out to be not what was promised either. However, security through obscurity is no security at all, and that’s how I view closed source. Applications are far more secure when the whole world can see how it’s made simply because there are far more eyes on that code than anything closed source. I realize Windows has come a long way in the security area, but it’s my opinion they still have work to do. Also, I’d seen Vista exploits since before it was even released [to businesses] back in November, so the idea that this many are out there now is no real shocker either. Rather, the real shock is that there aren’t more.

Microsoft themselves have already admitted to Vista’s problems, if only in a roundabout way, putting out an email calling for help from the more technical Windows community in testing Service Pack 1, due out later this year, which will address “regressions from Windows Vista and Windows XP, security, deployment blockers and other high impact issues.”

Licensing with the new Vista has also take on a whole new level of “can’t”. The old rule of “one machine per copy” still applies, but now, if you purchase a computer with Vista on it, you can’t use that version of Vista on any other machine… ever. Also in the license, you grant Microsoft the right to automatically delete whatever they so deem as spyware from your computer, done through the “Windows Defender” and through the “Windows Genuine Advantage”, you consent to Microsoft stopping any copying that it feels may be illegal - a system that has already erred more than a half million times.

On the question of what Vista will do to open source: A few months ago, Ribosi Inc. was making most of its money providing support for existing systems and selling only a few, very specialized systems over the course of a year. Since the release of Vista, I’ve had to set up e-commerce on our web site to handle the sudden influx of desktop computer orders and we’re currently working on setting up a full on call center here in Waynesboro. We’re a small shop now, but I see that changing in the very near future at this rate. Considering that, I’d say the Vista release has been the best thing to happen to open source software in quite some time, at least, from where I sit.

¹Case 2:07-cv-00475-MJP United States District Court, Western District of Washington at Seattle