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When you walk around with a Tux on your keychain, chances are that when you are invited out (if ever that happens), people will ask the question - "What's the deal with Linux?". Why Linux? Why did you choose that system? What's wrong with Windows? What's different? Why should we use it? Recurring questions...

I've had years to think about the "right" answer, and I've come to the conclusion that there isn't one. My personal answer is this: Dedication, and Choice. I have the dedication, and the choice, to use Linux.

I stopped using Windows "full-time" the same day that Windows 95 came out. That doesn't mean that I don't use it from time to time; helping friends with their computer, developing applications for Win platforms, work computers, or just surfing the web whilst at a friend's house. It was my main work platform for years when I worked for Packard Bell NEC. I was even given the role as a beta-tester for Windows XP. So you can imagine the amount of fiddling I did on the systems. My role was to test applications and games coming from the 98/2k realm, and see how they worked with XP, then send of some results. Constant contact with Microsoft, and the editors. Every time I send an email, I really didn't know who was going to get the email, even if someone got it. A while later, I got a reply in my email telling me that thanks, my message was received, and that someone will look into it. The email was sent from customer dot support at whoever, and I didn't even know if it was sent from a program, or from a user playing with Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V. It lacked personality.

When reporting a bug for a Linux program, it doesn't happen that way. You don't send a blind email to a company, you log onto a forum, and explain what happened. Someone, a human, answers. So long as your request is structured and relevant, answers will be coming soon. You can actually check the progression, watching people try to reproduce your bug, the different results, hypotheses, and eventual corrective action. From time to time, someone will answer saying that he hasn't got a clue, and this is actually important. It shows that the people here are humans; they have their strong points and their weak points, they are either asking for help, or giving it. They have names, family names, Christian names or sometimes just pseudonyms, but the have personality. Christian is an accountant, Stephanie is a graphist, Alex is a manager, this isn't necessarily their job, but they are spending time helping, because they feel that it is right. I also feel that it is right to hep that way, and yes, I know that some people will take full advantage of that and not give anything back, but hey, that's the game. Some will ask more than they give, others will give more than they ask, and the rewards can be extremely gratifying. A simple "Thankyou!" on a forum is a serious boost to morale. This is what the Open Source community is about. For some it is their job, for others it is a vocation, but an entire community is there to help eachother out. Armel Kermorvant, former boss and now OEM Vice President at Mandriva, has this to say about Open Source: "They are very interesting technologies because open source works as a community. All issues or questions are very important for everybody." That's about as short as it gets, but it is spot on.

So that's dedication, but my dedication to helping others, and the dedication of the Open Source community. But what about choice?

Choice is the key word to Linux. You don't have to use it, you have the choice to use it. But which one? Ubuntu? Mandriva? Redhat? Fedora? Debian? The list goes on and on, but in the end, it comes down to choice. Each distribution has it's own philosophy, and it is up to you to decide which one you prefer. It isn't that easy with Windows. Today, the choice is either XP or Vista, and even then, some don't have the choice, depending on their hardware or applications. Sure, you can customize it, but to what extent? You can change the wallpaper, the colours, some of the fancy animations, the icons... Practically everything. But not quite everything. The file manager is the same, and you can't change that. Back in the days of Windows 3.1, you could, but those days are long and gone. With Linux, you can. Choose your distribution. I chose Ubuntu. Choose your window manager. I chose Gnome. I could have had KDE, XFCE, AfterStep, Enlightenment... Once again, the list goes on.

In the wonderful world of Linux, when you have something to do, you have the choice about what tools to use, and making a choice will not limit you to what you can do next; everything plays well with everything else. Install KDE, but you can still use that Gnome application. Install XFCE, and you can still use the KDE applet to monitor your system battery. Linux will even give you the choice to install other operating systems, and let you use them. Linux will happily give you the choice to start Windows or Linux, but Windows doesn't ask any questions, and will automatically start Windows from there on. 

Don't get me wrong; choice is good, but it can also be bad. My shiny iPhone is the perfect example. The iPhone is sexy tool, but in order to just start it up, I had to have either Windows or MacOS. It won't start otherwise. It has to be registered through iTunes. All the applications I use have to go through iTunes. My music, videos and photos have to go through iTunes. Who is Apple to say what I can and can not have on my iPhone? Yes, I'll admit, my iPhone has been jailbroken, but that's just me and my twisted philosophy. This has a price to pay, though... The iPhone is a highly closed platform, and Apple gets to say what you can, and can not have on it. The result is a rock solid platform that is ready for practically anything, snappy as the first day you bought it. Just try doing that in your classic Windows CE handheld.

My friends also have the choice; I give them my personal advice and my impressions of Linux, and I let them choose. Some might try Linux, others won't. Some could probably find what they are looking for with Linux, but others should clearly stay with Windows. That's what choice is all about.