This is part one of a two part article about a "real life" control system that is a candidate for moving to a VM on Linux. This control system is being used right now in a real manufacturing facility.

“You can have freedom without choice.” That someone could even come up with this one is just amazing to me. The ability to choose is a major part of what freedom—or liberty—is. If you cannot make a choice on a matter, then by definition you do not have freedom in the context of that matter.

Are you a new Linux user? Fantastic! Welcome to the world of freedom. Freedom of choice, freedom of expression, freedom from vendor lockin. You’ve made an excellent choice. Now that you’ve chosen, installed, and are using Linux there are a few things you should keep in mind as you learn the ropes of your new system.

Five years ago, the open source Xen hypervisor was the primary technology that big vendors like IBM and Red Hat were adopting and pushing. In 2010, that's no longer the case as the rival KVM effort is now getting the attention of both IBM and Red Hat , as well as many others in the Linux ecosystem.

In the Big Physics community, Linux is quite popular. Having met with numerous groups, Linux almost always comes up as a topic of discussion and in many cases it’s part of their labs roadmap for rolling out control, test, and other systems. The first issue is cost. Microsoft Windows costs $100 or more for each computer and when you have hundreds of systems, it adds up to real money fast.

As computers play an increasingly important role in the way we communicate, the people who control the software that runs on computers play an increasingly important role in determining what we can say, how we can say it, who we can say it to, and when we can say it. Control over technology is power. Free software is an attempt to say that this power should be wielded democratically.

There’s a lot of talk in the Linux and free open-source software (FOSS) communities about freedom and choice. It’s practically a mantra. Y’see, wonderful though they are, each of these awesome Linux distributions comes with a hidden price for all that ease and convenience.

The lack of Linux tools which can modify enterprise wide linux deployments is helping to slow it's adoption. Linux philosophy is based around freedom from the control. The control is in the hands of the user and the enterprise administer is left out in the cold.

"Many of us in the Free Software community have a certain level of “activist” within us, pushing those around us towards the ideals that we cherish. Ideals such as freedom. Freedom of communication, freedom of data, freedom of choice. This March 26th is Document Freedom Day, another occasion where we can band together and help promote Open Document Standards..."