Do You Know What’s in Your Food or What’s in Your OS?
It’s the 4th Friday of the month and you know it’s time for your favorite A Gentle Introduction to Linux for Non-Geeks again! I’m going to keep this one short because one of my best friends from high school is coming to visit me for a week, and I want to tidy up my messy apartment before picking him up from the airport. As any best friends would do for their best friends, I stuffed the fridge with lots of our favorite foods and products from the supermarket. Let’s just say it’s a whole lot of sugary goodness! Since we’re both very omnivorous when it comes to eating, if it’s yummy, it’s in the cart. But for the more health conscious people the information on the food label is an essential read before any purchase. Apart from the name of the product, the address of the manufacturer, it also gives us the ingredients list and nutrition facts.
I know my mom always avoids foods with preservatives or color additives. Some people may be allergic to certain ingredients, and some people need the information on calories for their diet. With the information provided on the food label, consumers can make smart choices or important decisions. If someone is allergic to peanut, negligence to read the food label can be a matter of life and death. Also, despite the fact that today, all these additives and artificial colorings may have been declared safe for consumption, tomorrow the labs might tell us a different story. Various studies have suggested, for example, that the artificial sweetener Aspartame used in chewing gums could lead to cancer. Before Aspartame is removed from the database of approved ingredients that can be added into our foods, people should have that information available to decide for themselves whether or not they want to expose themselves to such risk.
In a way this is also what the source code of an Operating System does for us. If an OS is open source, everyone can look inside. If they see something they don’t like, they can edit the code anyway they want. Or they can simply refuse to use it. You already know that Linux is an open and free OS. Windows, on the other hand, is closed source and proprietary. Not only does it remain the property of the Microsoft Cooperation even when it’s running on your PC, you also have no idea what it’s secretly doing in the background without your knowledge, because nobody can read Microsoft’s “food label”. Do you know the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program secretly sends various information of your PC to the Redmond company when you go online? Who knows what other sneaky things Windows does behind your back? What if there’s a serious bug in the OS that causes security risks for the user? Too bad, nobody can just change the source code to eliminate the problem because nobody can touch the code except Microsoft. Some of these security problems just don’t get patched for months or even years.
So you see, running Windows is just like eating food that has no food label. For many it’s no big deal. But wouldn’t you agree it should be there for anyone who cares to read? OK, even I have to admit that I seldom read them when doing the groceries. But then again, Microsoft’s business practice record unfortunately suggests, over and over again, that it just doesn’t deserve the kind of trust we can give to, say, Ben & Jerry’s.
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