Standard proprietary you-need-a-new-computer-every-few-years software is not a model that allows everyone to have a computer. A very bottom of the line Vista desktop from Dell costs nearly $500, so it is hardly realistic for everyone to own one. Linux and open-source software, however, present an alternative.

Recently, a Free Software Foundation Magazine article discussed the bad reputation that Linux seems to have collected. The author recounts his experience talking with a Linux user who, almost unknowingly, credited Windows with working better with peripherals.

Mark Shuttleworth promised a new and breathtaking theme for the upcoming Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) operating system,

a cute graphic on flickr - a linux kid - photo only - plus comments

Welcome to the future. Linux is now a first-class desktop operating system citizen. Adobe today released version 10 of its Adobe Flash Player, available now in a variety of convenient packaging formats for Linux, as well as other popular desktop operating systems.

The Wikimedia Foundation, the organization behind the user-driven Wikipedia project, is in the process of migrating its servers to the Ubuntu Linux distribution.

"Freedom matters, whether it be the file formats or the software itself. It is software freedom that allows all these devices to exist and to be sold so cheaply, and software freedom that causes Linux and other Free Software to create and expand into an ecosystem that simply wouldn't exist if proprietary software were all that was available"

One criticism of Linux is that ordinary people are, on the whole, too ignorant about technology to use anything except Windows. This is just wrong.